2009 ARRL September VHF Contest
09/14/2009 |
K2DRH
The struggle to keep this pile of junk up and running continues. After finally rebuilding the gear box and refurbishing the motor once again, hopefully the rotor will hold up for a while. Its getting old climbing up and down to fix it. The motor testing took out the control box, but I was able to fix that pretty easily. The refurbished setup seems to drag a little more often than it used to, and to go a bit slower, but it held in there. Hopefully it just needs to work itself in. After working perfectly during the UHF contest, 3456 was acting up again too making it harder (but luckily not impossible) to hear.
This contest was interesting for sure. Propagation started flat on Saturday but really picked up during the day and got really pretty good during the late evening. The high bands werent working all that well during the day but conditions were improving as the afternoon progressed into evening. The score was still kinda sad looking by nightfall though. Things really opened up around 0400Z-0430Z or so to the east out 500-700 miles. It was funny when I called KA2LIM in FN12 and the op at first told me we had already worked, only to suddenly realize that I was definitely NOT in NY! It was really neat working Tony WA8RJF in EN91 up to 2304 and K9MRI in EM87 on the bottom 4. Unfortunately it seemed like mostly everyone but the multis and the diehards had gone to bed by then and I had to soon run off to do WSJT skeds. By the time I got back around 0700 it was pretty quiet. Late night and early morning Random WSJT seemed sparse this year.
Sunday Morning was really good and really insane. The microwaves were great out at least 400 miles and I concentrated on working stations like K4TO EM77 (to 2304) and K8TQK EM89 (to 3456) out that far that had a lot of bands. I got N4QWZ in EM66 at 400 miles and K9MRI at 500 miles on 1296 (K9MRI was up to S9)! Some stations to the east as far as W3LA FN00 and were workable on the bottom 4 but there were lots of stations everywhere that I needed to work. There was some very nice tropo out past 500 miles but it was tough to get past the closer stations on low power. I also knew many of the locals that I heard in the morning would not be on later in the day, especially after the football games came on.
At the same time there was a lot of activity going on to the West thanks to W9FZ/R and his efforts to get the Great Plains states on the air. My noise source to the West was absolutely QUIET for few hours in the morning and I took advantage of that to turn my antennas west and work quite a few grids that I dont hear very often. W9FZ/R was workable out 420 miles in EN10 up through 1296. Too many things going all at once in too many directions! All contests should be like that! By the time my noise came back the tropo to the east had diminished, and the day went on with sporadic enhancement to the SE and south. No sporadic E at all on 6m though.
Daytime prop was pretty decent too but by evening it had mostly dropped off again. Still there was some nice prop down toward Memphis and I was able to work AG4V/R in four seldom worked grids out 350 or so miles on the bottom four bands. Stations in AR, AL and MS were workable out 500 miles and stations like K5SW EM25, K5YPV EM54, WB4WEN EM86 all went in the log. KB0HH in EM06 was workable for the first time here in a contest and I heard him very well on 432, but with low power 100W he was not able to hear my CW. I used CW a lot more than usual this time since the signals were there, but too weak on SSB.
The end of the contest was exciting as always and I managed 10 new muts in the last half hour. W9FZ/R caught me as for the last QSOs of the contest from EN12 at 400 miles and we worked the bottom 4. Right in the middle of that run W7XU got me on 2M from EN13. All in all my best effort to date and the grid totals (62 on 6M, 72 on 2M, 42 on 222 and 50 VUCC! - on 432) reflect the nice tropo conditions we had.
-- 73 de Bob K2DRH
This contest was interesting for sure. Propagation started flat on Saturday but really picked up during the day and got really pretty good during the late evening. The high bands werent working all that well during the day but conditions were improving as the afternoon progressed into evening. The score was still kinda sad looking by nightfall though. Things really opened up around 0400Z-0430Z or so to the east out 500-700 miles. It was funny when I called KA2LIM in FN12 and the op at first told me we had already worked, only to suddenly realize that I was definitely NOT in NY! It was really neat working Tony WA8RJF in EN91 up to 2304 and K9MRI in EM87 on the bottom 4. Unfortunately it seemed like mostly everyone but the multis and the diehards had gone to bed by then and I had to soon run off to do WSJT skeds. By the time I got back around 0700 it was pretty quiet. Late night and early morning Random WSJT seemed sparse this year.
Sunday Morning was really good and really insane. The microwaves were great out at least 400 miles and I concentrated on working stations like K4TO EM77 (to 2304) and K8TQK EM89 (to 3456) out that far that had a lot of bands. I got N4QWZ in EM66 at 400 miles and K9MRI at 500 miles on 1296 (K9MRI was up to S9)! Some stations to the east as far as W3LA FN00 and were workable on the bottom 4 but there were lots of stations everywhere that I needed to work. There was some very nice tropo out past 500 miles but it was tough to get past the closer stations on low power. I also knew many of the locals that I heard in the morning would not be on later in the day, especially after the football games came on.
At the same time there was a lot of activity going on to the West thanks to W9FZ/R and his efforts to get the Great Plains states on the air. My noise source to the West was absolutely QUIET for few hours in the morning and I took advantage of that to turn my antennas west and work quite a few grids that I dont hear very often. W9FZ/R was workable out 420 miles in EN10 up through 1296. Too many things going all at once in too many directions! All contests should be like that! By the time my noise came back the tropo to the east had diminished, and the day went on with sporadic enhancement to the SE and south. No sporadic E at all on 6m though.
Daytime prop was pretty decent too but by evening it had mostly dropped off again. Still there was some nice prop down toward Memphis and I was able to work AG4V/R in four seldom worked grids out 350 or so miles on the bottom four bands. Stations in AR, AL and MS were workable out 500 miles and stations like K5SW EM25, K5YPV EM54, WB4WEN EM86 all went in the log. KB0HH in EM06 was workable for the first time here in a contest and I heard him very well on 432, but with low power 100W he was not able to hear my CW. I used CW a lot more than usual this time since the signals were there, but too weak on SSB.
The end of the contest was exciting as always and I managed 10 new muts in the last half hour. W9FZ/R caught me as for the last QSOs of the contest from EN12 at 400 miles and we worked the bottom 4. Right in the middle of that run W7XU got me on 2M from EN13. All in all my best effort to date and the grid totals (62 on 6M, 72 on 2M, 42 on 222 and 50 VUCC! - on 432) reflect the nice tropo conditions we had.
-- 73 de Bob K2DRH
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