2007 ARRL June VHF Contest
06/20/2007 |
N3AWS
Planning for this contest began while I was deployed to Qatar from early January through late May 2007. I had two jobs while deployedStaff Radiologist and Medical Operations Flight Commanderleaving little time for ham radio or any other outside interests. Still, I really wanted to participate in my favorite category: Single Operator Portable and, after Hurricane Katrinas devastation in 2005, my station wasnt ready for the effort.
My rigs (Icom 706 MKII and Yaesu FT-817) were in storage and fully functional as was the battery that would serve as a portable power source. My six meter homemade portable dipole was available, although I hoped for something better. If time would allow, once I returned Stateside my plan was to build an extended double zepp (EDZ) for 50 MHz. I had no antenna for 144 or 432 MHz and so that is where I focused my efforts while in Qatar. Over the internet, I posed some questions to the VHF Reflector and the forums on E-ham.net. After considering the advice I received, I purchased a five element log periodic beam from Elk Antennas and 50 feet of bury flex coax to feed it.
What drew me to the Elk LP was that it was a simple solution to my antenna dilemma. It was very small and light weight, operated on both 144 and 432 MHz, and required a single coax feed. This appeared to be a good compromise for my situation. I didnt have time or other resources for an elaborate set-up. My goal for these two bands was to pick up some nearby grids and, maybe, some coastal tropo if conditions permitted. The small size and light weight made it simple to use with my Armstrong rotator. The single feedline simplified connections and station set-up. Assembly time for the Elk could be measured in seconds as each element is color-coded for rapid, foolproof assembly. The Elk has a very low SWR across both the weak signal and FM simplex parts of both bands and a simple twist of the PVC coupling changes the orientation from horizontal to vertical as needed. All of these advantages made me feel good about picking the Elk over other options.
My laptop computer (Compaq Presario 1500) and a freeware logging program rounded out the station. I felt I was as ready as I could get at that point, 7,798 miles from my home QTH. Now, lets see what Murphy had in store for me
As it turned out, my replacement would arrive late and my departure time was jeopardized. Everyone was supposed to have five days of overlap with their replacement. Mine arrived three days late andsince he was replacing me for two jobsI wasnt optimistic I would be allowed to depart Qatar on schedule. If bumped from a flight during a troop rotation month, getting on a new flight could become a long process. Although it went down to the wire, I was permitted to depart on my scheduled flight. The trip home was long, but uneventful. I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived at the local airport in Gulfport, MS and was greeted by members of my Church. A retired Admiral came by and introduced himself while thanking me for my service. Overall, I was just glad to be home!
Lots of work and home stuff had to be attended to before I could even think about radio contests, but things went fairly smoothly. The Elk antenna had arrived and was packaged in a triangular package measuring 6 x 6 x 6 and two feet long. Murphys next effort: all over the package were stickers boldly proclaiming: Damaged by the Postal Service in Shipment. Uh-oh. I grabbed my digital camera and took some pictures of the package in case I would need to make a claim. As it turns out the Elk antenna was not damaged, just the box. The five element LP seemed too small to believe and the construction was rugged suggesting many years of future service.
Although back ordered, Giga-parts came through with the Bury Flex coax (LMR-400 equivalent) in plenty of time. This is great coax and very easy to use. In retrospect, I only wish I had ordered more of it while it was on sale! Now my 144 and 432 antenna woes were behind me. I set the Elk up in my attic and tested it out. Prior to the contest, I didnt hear a single 2 or 0.70 meter SSB or CW signal. Occasionally in the past I could hear some beacons, but they were to far away for me to hear them reliably so I wasnt sure where I stood. I tried it out on FM while mounted vertically and confirmed it was directional on 2 meters (there is hardly any 0.70 meters activity aroundnot even any repeaters!)
My plan to homebrew a 50 MHz EDZ never happened. The many other demands on my time won out and I gave in to the path of least resistance. I assured myself that my dipole would be adequate. So, with several days to spare, my A,B,D single operator portable station was ready to go.
Saturday arrived and Murphy tried again. This time his tool was the weather. Nothing out of the ordinary for summer in Mississippitemperatures in the mid to upper 90s and stormy weather. The bands were full of noise. Unfortunately, the noise wasnt coming from wall-to-wall signals, but from the storm clouds. The QRN was terrible. The Icoms noise blanker didnt help, although the DSP did a little. Almost an hour passed before I worked Barney K3FM in my own grid on 6 and 2. Although we tried several times during the contest on 432 MHz, I never heard him. He heard something, but he didnt think it was me. We chatted and killed some time as we would several times over the course of the contest. We talked about how Hurricane Katrina had treated us.
After saying 73 to K3FM, I went back to listening to QRN until lightning made me QRT for several hours. I got back on once the storm had passed and worked two more stations in my home grid (EM50). NW2E provided my only 432 QSO. We live about mile apart, so I likely could have worked him using a dummy load for an antenna. Before closing down for the night, I managed to work WB4TJO in EM60 on 6 meters for my second grid of the contest. After 7 hours, I had worked four different stations, all locals. I later learned that 6 opened to FL after I went QRT for the night.
Sunday morning I worked a local KF4YXR on both 6 and 2 for a new grid (EM61). Then I had my first taste of excitement working KE4YYD in EL79 on 144 MHz apparently on tropo. It may have been a freak occurrence as I couldnt attract anyone else along the Gulf Coast. An hour and a half later I worked K3YTL in FN11 by very brief Es. It would be another 11 hours before 6 finally opened with some sporadic E which lasted until the end of the contest. By then, I suspect a lot of folks had given up.
I ended the contest with 26 QSOs and 19 multipliers for a score of 513. My two goals for this contest were: win the Single Operator Portable (QRP) category for Mississippi and achieve a listing in the Regional Leaders box in QST. Time will tell whether I achieved these goals. Although my score is low, conditions seemed poor and everyone I talked with from this region seemed disappointed as well. I was pleased with the performance of the Elk antenna on 144 MHz and felt I couldnt adequately evaluate it on 432 MHz due to a lack of activity. Oddly, it should have slightly more gain on 0.70 meters than on 2, yet I easily worked K3FM on 2 but couldnt even hear him at all on 0.70 despite several attempts during slow periods.
The calls I made on 2 and 0.70 meter FM went unansweredpast contests both from EM50 and EM90 gave mixed results on FM simplex. Being deployed the months before the contest hurt me here, as the only way I have found to get some FM simplex QSOs is to be active on the local repeaters and arrange skeds for the contest ahead of time. I cant help but wish more FMers would try contesting. There was a simplex net in Jacksonville, FL (EM90) that got lots of check-ins every week. Those local QSOs can boost your score when conditions are flat. Even betterthey can lead to more local contesters which pays dividends in future contests. -- N3AWS
My rigs (Icom 706 MKII and Yaesu FT-817) were in storage and fully functional as was the battery that would serve as a portable power source. My six meter homemade portable dipole was available, although I hoped for something better. If time would allow, once I returned Stateside my plan was to build an extended double zepp (EDZ) for 50 MHz. I had no antenna for 144 or 432 MHz and so that is where I focused my efforts while in Qatar. Over the internet, I posed some questions to the VHF Reflector and the forums on E-ham.net. After considering the advice I received, I purchased a five element log periodic beam from Elk Antennas and 50 feet of bury flex coax to feed it.
What drew me to the Elk LP was that it was a simple solution to my antenna dilemma. It was very small and light weight, operated on both 144 and 432 MHz, and required a single coax feed. This appeared to be a good compromise for my situation. I didnt have time or other resources for an elaborate set-up. My goal for these two bands was to pick up some nearby grids and, maybe, some coastal tropo if conditions permitted. The small size and light weight made it simple to use with my Armstrong rotator. The single feedline simplified connections and station set-up. Assembly time for the Elk could be measured in seconds as each element is color-coded for rapid, foolproof assembly. The Elk has a very low SWR across both the weak signal and FM simplex parts of both bands and a simple twist of the PVC coupling changes the orientation from horizontal to vertical as needed. All of these advantages made me feel good about picking the Elk over other options.
My laptop computer (Compaq Presario 1500) and a freeware logging program rounded out the station. I felt I was as ready as I could get at that point, 7,798 miles from my home QTH. Now, lets see what Murphy had in store for me
As it turned out, my replacement would arrive late and my departure time was jeopardized. Everyone was supposed to have five days of overlap with their replacement. Mine arrived three days late andsince he was replacing me for two jobsI wasnt optimistic I would be allowed to depart Qatar on schedule. If bumped from a flight during a troop rotation month, getting on a new flight could become a long process. Although it went down to the wire, I was permitted to depart on my scheduled flight. The trip home was long, but uneventful. I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived at the local airport in Gulfport, MS and was greeted by members of my Church. A retired Admiral came by and introduced himself while thanking me for my service. Overall, I was just glad to be home!
Lots of work and home stuff had to be attended to before I could even think about radio contests, but things went fairly smoothly. The Elk antenna had arrived and was packaged in a triangular package measuring 6 x 6 x 6 and two feet long. Murphys next effort: all over the package were stickers boldly proclaiming: Damaged by the Postal Service in Shipment. Uh-oh. I grabbed my digital camera and took some pictures of the package in case I would need to make a claim. As it turns out the Elk antenna was not damaged, just the box. The five element LP seemed too small to believe and the construction was rugged suggesting many years of future service.
Although back ordered, Giga-parts came through with the Bury Flex coax (LMR-400 equivalent) in plenty of time. This is great coax and very easy to use. In retrospect, I only wish I had ordered more of it while it was on sale! Now my 144 and 432 antenna woes were behind me. I set the Elk up in my attic and tested it out. Prior to the contest, I didnt hear a single 2 or 0.70 meter SSB or CW signal. Occasionally in the past I could hear some beacons, but they were to far away for me to hear them reliably so I wasnt sure where I stood. I tried it out on FM while mounted vertically and confirmed it was directional on 2 meters (there is hardly any 0.70 meters activity aroundnot even any repeaters!)
My plan to homebrew a 50 MHz EDZ never happened. The many other demands on my time won out and I gave in to the path of least resistance. I assured myself that my dipole would be adequate. So, with several days to spare, my A,B,D single operator portable station was ready to go.
Saturday arrived and Murphy tried again. This time his tool was the weather. Nothing out of the ordinary for summer in Mississippitemperatures in the mid to upper 90s and stormy weather. The bands were full of noise. Unfortunately, the noise wasnt coming from wall-to-wall signals, but from the storm clouds. The QRN was terrible. The Icoms noise blanker didnt help, although the DSP did a little. Almost an hour passed before I worked Barney K3FM in my own grid on 6 and 2. Although we tried several times during the contest on 432 MHz, I never heard him. He heard something, but he didnt think it was me. We chatted and killed some time as we would several times over the course of the contest. We talked about how Hurricane Katrina had treated us.
After saying 73 to K3FM, I went back to listening to QRN until lightning made me QRT for several hours. I got back on once the storm had passed and worked two more stations in my home grid (EM50). NW2E provided my only 432 QSO. We live about mile apart, so I likely could have worked him using a dummy load for an antenna. Before closing down for the night, I managed to work WB4TJO in EM60 on 6 meters for my second grid of the contest. After 7 hours, I had worked four different stations, all locals. I later learned that 6 opened to FL after I went QRT for the night.
Sunday morning I worked a local KF4YXR on both 6 and 2 for a new grid (EM61). Then I had my first taste of excitement working KE4YYD in EL79 on 144 MHz apparently on tropo. It may have been a freak occurrence as I couldnt attract anyone else along the Gulf Coast. An hour and a half later I worked K3YTL in FN11 by very brief Es. It would be another 11 hours before 6 finally opened with some sporadic E which lasted until the end of the contest. By then, I suspect a lot of folks had given up.
I ended the contest with 26 QSOs and 19 multipliers for a score of 513. My two goals for this contest were: win the Single Operator Portable (QRP) category for Mississippi and achieve a listing in the Regional Leaders box in QST. Time will tell whether I achieved these goals. Although my score is low, conditions seemed poor and everyone I talked with from this region seemed disappointed as well. I was pleased with the performance of the Elk antenna on 144 MHz and felt I couldnt adequately evaluate it on 432 MHz due to a lack of activity. Oddly, it should have slightly more gain on 0.70 meters than on 2, yet I easily worked K3FM on 2 but couldnt even hear him at all on 0.70 despite several attempts during slow periods.
The calls I made on 2 and 0.70 meter FM went unansweredpast contests both from EM50 and EM90 gave mixed results on FM simplex. Being deployed the months before the contest hurt me here, as the only way I have found to get some FM simplex QSOs is to be active on the local repeaters and arrange skeds for the contest ahead of time. I cant help but wish more FMers would try contesting. There was a simplex net in Jacksonville, FL (EM90) that got lots of check-ins every week. Those local QSOs can boost your score when conditions are flat. Even betterthey can lead to more local contesters which pays dividends in future contests. -- N3AWS
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