2015 ARRL June VHF Contest
After participating in the VHF contest in 2014 and creating a log, I could never find the time or figure out how to correctly submit it. When January 2015 came around, I decided to make an effort to learn how to do the January VHF contest.
The day of the contest it was a nice, warm, and sunny, so I packed up my equipment and headed to the local mountain by my house, Sawnee Mountain. There is a park there, Sawnee Preserve that has a nice walking trail to the top. While not the top of the mountain, it offers nice views and only a few hundred feet lower than the true top to the west. I setup with my radio operating 2 meters and 70 cm. Soon I learned you could really get out quite a distance. In just 2 hours I had made over 20 contacts on both bands with my farthest contact on 70cm at about 60 miles and 85 miles on 2 meters. I figured out how to submit the log and ended up with a score of 198. Apparently that was enough to land me the top spot in the South East for Single Operator, FM only category.
I had also been very interested in the SOTA program and been wanting to do it for a couple years. Over the next few months I started to hone my skills on different mountain tops. This got me to thinking of a good place to operate from for the June VHF contest. I knew it would have to have a few requirements:
1) Be as high up in elevation as possible
2) Be relatively close to at least one large city (Atlanta in this case)
3) A public place where I can stay overnight and leave my stuff setup
4) Not too public where there is a large number of people
I selected Blood Mountain for my site. It fit all the above requirements and is fairly close to home. While not being the easiest place to get to at almost 4500’ elevation giving line of site to some places as far as 90 miles. From this location I should be able to hit 6 grid squares with no atmospheric enhancement. Checking the propagation models online the day before the start of the contest showed some promise for Sunday morning, I could only hope.
Experience and equipment from doing SOTA activations helped me prepare for this special activation. I was going to do a joint VHF/ SOTA activation, although my main purpose was to work the contest. I also wanted to work all the bands I could possibly work if I was to do the FM only category, so that meant getting a 220 radio and antenna. Thankfully I have a good group of local friends in the Sawnee Amateur Radio Association and was able to borrow a 220 Mhz radio from W4OO. Next was an antenna and it was down to the wire. I decided on a simple twin lead roll-up j-pole. Not only is this a light antenna but it has decent gain. I have made lots of 2 meter ones but never one for 220 Mhz. Based on what I knew I modeled it after the 2 meter ones but scaled down. My friend Brian W3CP helped me the night before the contest finish testing and tuning the antenna. We were able to achieve a 1.2 SWR on the calling frequency.
I packed most of the items the night before but left some of the batteries on charge until when I left in the morning. This was a lot more stuff than I am used to carrying on a regular SOTA activation. Batteries were my biggest concern and running out of power. Except for my 4.2 AH LiPo battery I use for SOTA, the other 3 were heavy AGM batteries. 3 radios, multiple antennas, feedlines, camping gear, push up pole. My pack weighed in at 60 Lbs. This was pushing the limits for sure. The hike was not an easy one being 2.2 miles with a 1500’ elevation gain. It would take me almost 3 hours to reach the top. I wanted to get there by noon to allow enough time to get setup and ready to go at 2pm.
The hike to the top went off without any complications, I counted over 50 people and several dogs along the way. The Application Trail is always busy on the weekend and it was nice to talk to others along the way when I stopped to rest. I reached the top around noon and setup camp and the station, had some lunch (MRE given to me by K4PRA) and waited for the start. My very first contact was someone mobile, he wasn’t aware of a contest going on which wasn’t a surprise for me but I hope would not be a trend to continue. I often have to explain where I am and what I am doing on a mountain for SOTA activations so I was prepared to give exact distances and heading from various state boundaries and cities. The first 2 hours were busy with contacts and some small pileups as expected so I had little time to talk to any curious hikers as to why there was an antenna on a pole 25 feet in the air.
My station consisted of one FT-8900R for 6m, 2m, and 70cm connected to a duplexer for the 2/70 feed and 6 meter feed, the 6 meter feeding a switch to 2 horizontal wire dipoles oriented East/West and North/South. The 2m/70cm to an Elk 5 element Yagi on the 25 foot pole. The 220 radio was a Motorola radio hooked up to the 300 ohm twin lead j-pole in a tree only about 6 feet off the ground; however it was enough to perform for the contacts that had 220 capabilities.
Weather was nice for the weekend with no rain or lightning! The wind was enough to offer a nice breeze but not cause any issues for the antennas. Soon it was night and there were several small groups also camping with me on the mountain top. This is when I realized I needed a slightly bigger tent, in my quest to pack as light as I could I took the smallest tent I had, when laying down you can’t fully stretch out in. This did not make for an ideal sleeping position, but I wasn’t really up there to sleep! Somewhere around 11pm I started to notice 6 meter propagation picking up a little, by midnight I was hearing guys in Knoxville, 80 miles to my north. I really needed that grid square but as much as I called for them they never heard me even though they were almost full scale on my radio. I finally gave up sometime after midnight and tried to get some sleep.
The next morning about 6am I woke and turned the radio on and scanned about 10 simplex frequencies I had preprogramed in. Immediately I heard a bunch of guys chatting away while drinking their morning coffee. I waited for a break and announced myself. Figuring they were local, when they came back and told me their grid square south of me by over 100 miles I knew there was an opening. While talking to them a guy chimed in and said you can log me – W4IMH, I am in EM70. I am like where is that? FL! I was almost jumping up and down, a contact of over 300 miles on FM. It didn’t matter if I was using 5 watts of 50, they reported I was full scale on their radios. After that I kept my beam pointed South, I wanted to see if I could get the couple grid squares in-between EM70 and me that I hadn’t got yet. I never got it, either it was skipping over or there were no hams listening. As the morning went on, I picked up another couple grid squares in South Carolina but the conditions were slowly deteriorating. And by noon it was all but gone.
Remember when I said I was up on the mountain also for SOTA and told some of my contacts ahead to time to let me know if they were chasing and I would record them in SOTA also. I figured I would catch at least one other SOTA activator that weekend but there were none. I left my HT in scan while I packed up the remainder of my items and I hear a discussion on the 2m calling frequency. I normally don’t call on that for SOTA and it isn’t legal for the contest and somehow it was programed my HT for scan. The guy on the other end was explaining Summits On The Air… I was like WHAT? So naturally I had to jump in! He was at Clingman’s Dome. At 62 miles it is still LOS and we had perfect copy both using HTs. And I logged him in SOTA for a S2S contact. I was so excited I totally forgot to ask him to go to a legal frequency and make a contact for another grid square! Over the weekend I missed a lot of opportunities like that for more points.
What I learned from my first real contest weekend:
1) Need lighter batteries
2) Need a lighter 220 radio
3) Need less food (think fasting)
4) Always ask what other bands the contact has you can work
5) Don’t try and argue with someone why we can’t use the 2m calling frequency or the “guard” frequencies on each side (rule 1.8), just move on.
6) Radios on dummy loads still radiate a long ways (thanks K4PRA)… test 1234, thought I was hearing DX at first.
Near the end, I felt like a real contester. Business only, call, Grid square exchange and confirmation… move on. No chit-chat. Kind of felt rude but I wanted those numbers. I can chit-chat later!
My batteries lasted longer than I thought they would, I think I could have done with one less. In the end I started using full power for all my contacts.
Overall I felt like I did a good job, I could have made more contacts but I would have really worn myself out. I still had to get down off the mountain with all my gear. We will see how I stack up against the other regions when it is all said and done but I think it is safe to say I won the single operator, FM only for the SE division. I ended up with over 120 contacts from 6 m to 70cm and 9 grid squares.
A big thanks to everyone that turned out and turned on to my signal
K4UB on Black Mountain helping out the cause, The guys in EM82: K4ICT,KK4TLG, W1LQJ,WB4NKU,K4RAD, N4WNX, and W4IMH in EM70!
W4OO for use of the 220 radio
K4PRA “Mr Test 1234” for the MREs and thinking I was hearing some DX
Thanks go out to K2JB for being a rover operator, just wish conditions were better for more contacts.
Some pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29542348@N06/
Ryan
KK4OSG
-- KK4OSGBack
