01/22/2007 | WK4P The hollerin' hillbilly, WK4P was back again for the 2007 January VHF Sweepstakes. As usual I operated the January contest from home. It is simply too cold and unpredictable this time of year to go mountain topping here in the NW corner of NC. This contest also gives me the opportunity to test the station I have set up here on my small .6 acre piece of heaven. Luckily I refused to buy any place with antenna restrictions or HOAs when I bought this house 13 years ago. Us hillbillies really don't like those HOAs and CC&Rs, although we do like CCR, haha.

The station this year consisted of the Icom 746 pro for 6 and 2 with the Yaesu 736r for 220 and 440. A Mirage brick supplied 100 watts on 220 but the 440 amp blew finals so I only had 25 watts there. The antennas included 5 elements at 45 feet on 6, 11 elements at 47 feet and a chimney mounted vertical on 2, 10 elements at about 45 feet on 220 and 18 at 50 on 440. A windstorm took down my 220 and 440 pole at the beginning of winter but thanks to W4TRP the "secret weapon" was deployed, see photos.

My impression is that activity was down this year. I feel my station is better than last year, and while my mults were up, my qso numbers were only up by 6, and down on the bands which I made little improvement to vs last year. I had a new father and son ham team visit my shack and was disappointed that I heard very little activity as the contest began. The short Es opening on Saturday night did help keep things exciting though.

Sunday would turn out to be a difficult day. Sometime around noon I received a call from the NWS asking me to activate the SKYWARN net. I am our local EC and during the last activation had to work during the entire event, so I really felt bad asking my SKYWARN backup to handle it. So with an HT monitoring the local repeater I took a break, called for WX reports, sent them in, and got back in "the ring". I did this six times Sunday, losing about 3 hours of contest time, but the public service job got done.

Then the ice came. And antennas at 50 feet do no like ice. My 220 and 440 antennas became virtully unusuable, although I did get a couple of contacts with locals on CW, it was the only way we could copy each other. The 2 meter beam got iced, sending the SWR to 3:1. But then what would a contest be without challenges.

The highlight of the contest came late, working K8TQK and WZ8D from EM89. I'm trying to learn to listen better and sometimes I need a little help, tnx N4BH.

My score was up, close to my goal, and I think a respectible showing for my little BB gun station. Hopefully I have learned some lessons and can improve for next year.

Peace and 73 to all. -- WK4P