I guess this was my "token effort" for this contest this year. I haven't been in the January contest in a few years, so I thought I'd get into this one. I only had Sunday available. I knew the temperature was supposed to get into the 50's here. That can be a good or a bad thing in the winter. In this case, the top of the hill in EN50rl that I use was a muddy swamp. I'd rather have had it a little below freezing.

Not only was it a swamp, but the wind was ferocious on the hill. My microwave dish blew over twice (without feed, fortunately) and my 902 antenna blew down once. I found I had serious problems with my 144 and 222 MHz transverters and/or antennas. Stations that would usually pin my s-meter on those bands were barely audible. I only worked two stations in the contest. I could hear one just above the noise level on 222 and the other I couldn't hear at all, although he could hear me.  So I have some troubleshooting to do before the next contest.

After a couple hours of slogging through the mud and getting all my antenna cables, the inside of my car (and me) full of mud, I gave up and packed up and went home. I just wasn't hearing anyone else on 144 and 222 MHz. I didn't hear anyone calling CQ on the bands that did work.

This was one of the worst VHF contests I've been in. I can think of one that was far worse and one that was comparable. I hope the rest of the year goes better than this.

73, Zack W9SZ