This one was tough sledding. Participation seemed average at best and the Midwest rovers who went out really helped, but a lot of them either didn’t make it this year or were out there for a single day. Flat conditions and an unexpected recurrence of problems on 432 conspired to make it difficult for me to connect on that band with the single band stations who did get on. Two days before the contest 432 seemed to working fine but on contest day normally loud stations were way down. Spent an hour on Saturday up the tower changing out coax and that seemed to help on Rx some but I still was not getting out well. I don’t normally keep a meter in the line on 432, but when I put one in it indicated was only TXing with about 10W. After troubleshooting for at least another hour with conflicting results I couldn’t really find anything wrong. So I put it all back together the same way it originally was and suddenly everything was working with 100W out again. Never really did find out why. Signals were still down and SWR was higher than it should be so I suspect the antenna problems I thought I’d fixed earlier this summer have returned. Got my work cut out for me before September.

Conditions improved locally on Sunday but not enough to make the really long stuff at 400 miles above 432 with K8TQK EM89 and I could not work N4QWZ EM66 on 432. Probably the best DX was with K2YAZ EN74 at 300 miles up to 1296 and WW8M EN72 on 1296 at 316 miles. Swept W0GHZ EN34 at 260 miles up to 3456. Jim W9SNR/R helped my score a lot with 6 band sweeps from 4 Chicago area grids and was the only other station I swept on all of my 6 bands this time. Only caught K9JK/R in one grid but we were able to work 4 bands. John made a few watt FM HT IF on 902 work for us when he sent intermittent carrier CW. Found W0ZQ/R in two grids for four bands but despite looking for him many times didn’t get him in the others. Gerry K0CQ/R did a two band 432 and 10 GHz rove and I was lucky enough to catch him in two grids on 432. Zack W9SZ had planned a rove with a stop on his usual EN50 hill but was feeling poorly and unable to go out this time.

AC0RA/R really got his mojo working as a limited rover with 4 bands to 1296 when W4ZRZ in EM63 helped with an equipment loan to get him set up on 902 just in time for the contest. Wyatt hit 12 grids all the way from EN33 on down to EM69 and I was lucky enough to work all 4 bands with him in all of them. He needed to check out his rover to run down a few issues that were plaguing him so I invited him to stop by for beer, brats and corn on the cob (does it get any more Midwest?) and to use my test gear since it was on his way home. It was fun to hang out with him for a while.

73 de Bob2 K2DRH EN41vr