It was a little crazy having only 2 weeks between CQWW VHF and the UHF contest. Especially since the Central States VHF Conference was the weekend in between with travel to Colorado.  It literally required me to jump up immediately after CQWW VHF ended and hop in the car to take the dog to the kennel, then start packing for an early morning departure the next day. We arrived back the night before the contest. I slept in and didn’t turn on the station until just before the contest. When I QSY’d over to 222 with the first station I was greeted with a dead receiver. Most of the first half hour was spent troubleshooting and finding a work around. 3456 was not playing well either and I missed out on several high point with multiplier QSOs.

Saturday was really slow and conditions seemed very depressed with stations out 200 miles at best half as strong as they usually are.  Rovers are very important in this contest and I kept track of them with the use of the MW rover plans spreadsheet that W0UC sets up for every contest.  The new rules help a lot since if you don’t hear a rover on their self-assigned calling frequencies in the time they allocate for each grid you can get in touch with them directly to look your way and not miss any grids.  AC0RA/R from Iowa was particularly active and at fairly easy distances both days so I was able to work him on all 4 bands in all 13 grids he visited. KC0P/ N0HZO family rover from Minneapolis/St Paul and NLRS was right at 200 miles on Saturday and workable up to 1296 in a few grids, but a lot further away on Sunday.  Few rovers went out of Chicago this time. W9SNR/R is always a treat to work, usually on all the bands I have but my 3456 was not up to the task this time. K9JK/R was out too, but a lot more difficult to find. And while it looked like I would have a good shot at KF8QL/R on Sunday, he changed plans and moved even further away.  Luckily I was still able to catch him on 2 bands in en74.

Conditions improved and later Saturday night around 0300 saw good local enhancement out 200 or so miles, but few around to enjoy it. Sunday morning was vastly improved to the east and longer distance Qs went into the log with K8TQK up to 2304 at 400 miles being about the best distance. I used ON4KST to make several hookups, but there were not a lot of stations in my range. By 1500Z the enhancement was all gone again and the last three hours were really slow.  Finally found W9SZ portable in the last hour and worked him on all bands except 3456.  A few more Qs than last year but a lot less grids.

73 de Bob2