This wasn't the best VHF contest I've been in, but it wasn't the worst either. Once again I was a Single-Op Portable from a hill 45 miles from home. Saturday brought equipment failures, weird conditions, either very poor conditions or lack of activity, frozen toes. I didn't take 50 MHz with me; I didn't suspect there would be an opening in January, which there was this year. Sunday brought iced-up antennas, a downed antenna mast (no serious damage was done), and even less activity than on Saturday. My microwave dish blew over and bent, but I was able to make one more QSO with it. A lot of the people I usually work either didn't seem to be around or couldn't hear me when I called. I packed it up on Sunday afternoon at 1800Z after not making any QSO's for 2 1/2 hours.

I hope other ops in the QRP Portable class had better climes and a better time of it than I did. I think I got most of the damaged equipment fixed by now, a week later. I'm re-thinking some designs. We'll see what the summer season holds!