This June's saga really starts this past winter when Exelon ComEd finally fixed the bad power line insulators I have been complaining about for 2 years. After the Jan contest. It was really nice while it lasted.

A few weeks before Dayton we had a huge windstorm and all sorts of new ones popped up, some really close and over S9. Tracked them down, called them in and a month later with the local ComEd power quality tech we identified the exact hardware to replace since the line crews have been taught not to think anymore and just do exactly what the work order says. The Exelon way … one reason I retired. No use having someone around who actually understands what’s going on and can do what needs to be done without specific cookbook instructions. It’s not all irony that Exelon is also the name of an Alzheimer’s drug, they demand workers forget what we know (skill based error they dub it) and just follow instructions written by work analysts and procedure writers who almost never see the actual job and can’t possibly think of everything. The ComEd tech called back and said the work was scheduled for the end of July. I then talked to his boss about how the last time dragged on to the point I almost called the FCC and how he could do better. The tech called me back and said good news, they could move it up to the week AFTER the June ARRL VHF contest! Of course it’s still their lowest priority work and could get bumped out. I’m not holding my breath.
 
Came home from Dayton, as so many others did, with the lingering crud and it put my tower work way behind this year.  Repaired the problems on 432 and got both antennas connected up again as well as replaced the 20 year old preamp. Also got the 902 preamp working again. I found water in several of the half inch Superflex FSJ4 runs around the rotating joint, but also in some runs up the rotating section to the antennas. The connectors were sealed perfectly on both ends and looked brand new (heck the water all stayed inside)!  Like N8DJB told me it somehow gets between the jacket and the copper spiral then runs down into the sealed connectors. I suspect there are pinholes or imperfections in the jacket that are not visually obvious. Due to differential pressure between outside and inside these aspirate warm humid air, then when it cools down at night the water condenses inside. Over time, like the infamous 9913 “water hose”, it fills up with water because the outer jacket is not tightly bound or glued to the copper spiral. Once the connector is dry and the water all drains out of the Superflex it tests out fine since it doesn’t get past the copper spiral and into the dielectric. Thinking about cutting drain sections out of the jacket before it gets to the bottom connectors!

I also put up a 9el low 2M antenna at 25 feet on the 6M rotating tower. This was mainly for shorter distance Ms contacts (600-900 miles) since the higher radiation angle and wider beam width should capture more random meteor burns. I didn’t make a lot of Ms skeds this contest because I wasn’t sure if I could get all the stuff working in time so the jury is still out on this and I will be experimenting with it over the next few months. I also have a large noise source to the west from about 240 to 260 degrees (that pesky Nuclear Plant I used to work for) that can make things  difficult and since the lower 2M antenna doesn’t see it as well as the high ones it’s a lot quieter. Unfortunately many of the adjacent grids to the west are barren of active VHF/UHF stations, but it sure helped when the rovers went there. It also proved effective as a quick change of direction for close in stations and surprisingly sometimes it played as well or even better with stations out 300 miles or so depending on how the QSB was affecting them. Of course in flat conditions it’s about 10db down from the main antennas.
   
Saturday was very windy and the power line insulators were all singing in concert. The contest started with a thud, no Es and terrible tropo  conditions. Except for a few scattered late afternoon and evening periods to the west and a couple of stray FL and Atlantic coast stations that quickly came and went, 6M was flat all day. W9RM in DM58 was loud for about 15 minutes and I did work some weak double hop to Southern CA. W9ZIH caught me right in the middle of that 10PM double hop opening and demanded I work him right now up to 3456 otherwise he was going to shut down for bed and not be back for the rest of the contest, so I had to leave 6M for the microwave mults and points I would not otherwise get. 10 minutes later (record time for a band run with Ron) I worked a couple more in So Cal but it died out quickly after that. I spent most of my day chasing rovers and working all I could. The evening also brought enhanced tropo up to 432 to the mountaintop multiops like W4IY FM08 and W4COV FM07, but with the exception of AA4ZZ in EM96 there were no other stations heard. The multis were in for a few hours, sometimes 10 and 20 over on 2M. At 400 miles N4QWZ in EM66 was louder than usual on 2M and with a little persistence we managed to work up to 1296. But once again there were no others heard out that way.

WSJT was real bummer this time out. Not having many skeds I tried randoms but there was hardly anyone doing it, not even the multis. Since the latest buzz is about JT65A (AKA JT65HF) on 50.276 I listened up there too but that was also a non-starter. I heard nobody at night at all and the only one I heard in the morning was K0TPP in EM48 (who I can work anytime on tropo) and I even managed to mess that up so we didn’t have a Q. I’ve tried it before the contest and while it works OK, it seems to me that JT65A with the JT65HF protocol is very slow and the mode is ill-suited for typical 6M propagation modes that burst and fluctuate rapidly. ISCAT (like K1JT Joe Taylor intended) is much more efficient for weak Es and ionoscatter.

Hope that the good tropo would be back on Sunday morning was soon dashed and the insulators were again singing in the wind all day. I had a very hard time with K0AWU in EN37 to the North even on 6 and 2M. For years now we have been using JT65b since we have a marginal tropo path on 222 and 432 especially since I am low power, but we can usually do 6 and 2M on CW in a few minutes. This time we had to resort to JT65 on 2M and didn’t make 432 at all. Of course later in the evening I heard him on 2M SSB just fine but had a microwave run pending with another station and never heard him again to try 432. I also never heard my FL sked on 2M FSK441 and nothing on FSK random or JT65HF. This all took way too much prime morning time. 6M opened to FL for about 2 hours, but it was fairly early in the morning and it seemed difficult to get a sustained run going. While signals were loud, few were calling back and from what I could tell FL was mostly working stations in W1/2/3. Or maybe the problem was on my end.

6M died again so I went back to rover tracking and 2M calling for a while.  6M then opened up again for a few hours to both TX and FL (with a few others to the SW) and got some decent rate, but I had to break several times to band run rovers and closer stations in new grids. I don’t know when it happened, but I discovered my 6M amp had cut out and I must have been working them on about 10W (there’s nothing like having a lot of aluminum). It was an easy fix (power cord dislodged) but I wound up really pissing off a local station about 100 miles away because of it.

K9PPY first moved in right above me and I tolerated it with tighter filters and by moving down a bit. But I couldn’t move any lower than 128.5 otherwise when someone strong got on the call I would get blasted on the bad side. He kept pressing down and I could hear him fine. Normally he should have heard me too,so I was annoyed that he’d gotten so close and was squeezing me. I could hear the stations I had just worked work him next. After about a half hour or so of this he suddenly switched to 0.5 KHz below me. That really set me off because it seemed like a deliberate tactic to push me out, or so I thought. So I turned directly to him and let him know what I thought about that move in no uncertain terms. Now I realize my 13db drop in output was to blame and he really couldn’t hear me with our antennas parallel just like he said. I’m still puzzled that he apparently didn’t hear my callers like I could hear his, but it sure wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t hear me. Hope he soon forgives me for being harsh with him. In the heat of the battle I forgot my favorite maxim, never attribute to malice what can be better explained by stupidity. In this case mine!

W9SNR/R was the only rover fielding anything above 432 and we swept 8 bands in all of his 3 grids despite problems with the wind on his end. W9SZ was getting blown off his favorite hill in EN50 and his antennas kept turning but we still managed to sweep all 8 bands that I have. AC0RA/R and KC0SKM/R kept on the move and I missed them in a few, but got them in most grids they visited. W9YOY/R was close in and I got him in several grids including a 222 FM contact in my own grid. K9PW/R was out with 3 bands but I only heard him once.

By 1900 6M collapsed completely and except for a short but intense burst to the FM grids around 0000Z with few stations to work it never opened again. I was surprised that there was no depth to this opening as I can usually work a bunch in the mid-Atlantic grids (yes my amp was back on line). It must have either had a small footprint or everyone there had given up on 6M. The rest of the time I was fighting the wind induced QRN and working as many as I could but the hourly rates look more like a January contest than June. I did put W1AW/0 portable in EM34 in the log on 2, 222 and 432 in parallel with W0GHZ who I worked on 6 bands, but could not hear them on 6 or any of the higher bands. In the last hour it seemed like someone pulled a switch, the bands went dead and my CQs all went unanswered. But finding 2 rovers in new grids and catching K9MRI’s attention then working 6 bands for 4 new mults made it worth sticking it out until the end.

  
73 de Bob2 K2DRH