06/15/2016 | K2DRH

 K2DRH Got all the winter damage fixed a few weeks before the test this time since we had an extended trip planned to NY for a wedding that wouldn’t get me back until a few days before the test. The control cable for the 6M 8x7 array had to be replaced, some antennas had to be fixed or realigned and the 902 cabling need a lot of work. 902/3 still does not hear as well as it should. The rotor motor on the main VHF tower had to be rebuilt because the gearbox shaft seals started throwing oil into it again and I hoped it would hold up for the test. It held up until the last few hours when I had to climb again to get it going Sunday evening but then it quit for the last 45 minutes of the test. Need to clean it out again and put up the other gearbox that has new seals in it before the next test. Rotor on the 20’ 5EL also quit the day of the contest (it was fine the day before) so I fixed the antenna on TX. 

   

Saturday started out really slow and I concentrated on 2 at the start to get some locals in the log but few seemed to listening on 2M except the rovers. Bands seemed flat to minus. 6M kept teasing until about 2200Z when it finally opened with average signals to the SW (TX, AZ, NM) and the SE (FL) simultaneously making for a couple good hours before I worked it all out with it still open. Made sure I called on 2M too but it was mostly a wasteland so I tracked the rovers to keep things going. After a two hour lull it opened to W1 and W2 really strong for about an hour and a half (with still some EM and DM thrown in) and I put about 200 in the log, but had to frequently abandon my CQ freq to track a rover or three or do a band run. Things quieted down around 0300Z so went and did some Ms off the Ping Jockey page and lined up a few longer distance QSOs on ON4KST. My numbers were OK on 6M but awful on 2M and above so I stayed up way too late to finally push my score above 100K with new mults on WSJT Ms just in case Sunday was as slow as it often has been of late.

 

Sunday dawned too soon after less than 3 hours sleep, and was pouring down rain and thunder with precip QRN so loud there was no way to hear anything on my morning 4 band sked with K0AWU in EN37. There was no way to do Ms on WSJT with those noise levels either. It rained steadily from 6AM to almost 8AM killing any morning tropo lift and the local activity on 2M. Luckily 6M opened early and I was able to use the lower antennas to put Qs in the log. It stayed open all morning and into the early afternoon killing any chance of getting a lot of 2M and above action except for the occasional band run from my 6M CQ frequency or rover run. Luckily there was a lot of action to the SW EM and DM grids, a decent opening to the SE EM grids and a smattering of DN grids with the occasional double hop link to CA. Even worked W3FF in CN80 while he was QRP tricycle mobile! Good thing I can quickly switch a lot of 6M antennas aimed in different directions! There was even a short window to the PNW and I worked VE7DAY in CO70.

The band was going crazy in the evening from the east coast to Eu and to JA from the Midwest and South. In a lull I tuned up JA7QVI who was the strongest and worked him CW with low power! I even saw some action to the Caribbean when ZF1EJ and several CO and KP4s called me in my pileup. I also made a QSO with EA8DBM on SSB when he was a true S9. Wish I could have taken more advantage of that great opening but chasing weak CW DX with the band open domestically just slows things way down.   In reality during this contest they are just one more Q and Mult; not worth waiting in line for!

The action died off as I saturated TX and the DM grids so I went back on 2M and luckily a lot more stations were around to work in the evening but conditions were flat at best. Just when things were going good the main tower rotor quit and I had to climb up to kick start it again wasting about 40 minutes. That quick fix lasted until about 15 minutes into the final hour, but that turned out OK since 6M had ripped open to W1/W2 again and there was a lot of new stations to work hoping to boost their scores too, so I had plenty to do without going to 2M and above.

     

Thanks to AC0RA/R fielding 8 bands up to 3456 this contest my microwave totals are about the best they have been in a very long time. Most of them were from at least 100-200 miles away except for the few that I worked in my own and adjacent grids. All in all it was a lot of fun and the best June contest I have seen from this QTH since 2006! 

 

Now for a bit of a rant … tune it out if you don’t want to read it.

Because of all the aluminum gain I’m really loud during strong Es even with low power on 6M. And I’m getting sick of guys telling me I’m splattering or 10KC wide when I know I’m not. Before every ARRL test I reset the levels down so I’m putting out the right power for SOLP and everything is totally padded down so nothing is over driven. I keep my mic setting the same as when I operate with a KW for DX and the CQWW VHF. The day before this test several guys with top quality SDRs checked me out when they had me 20 over or better and all gave me a clean bill of health. I’d even purposely pushed the mic gain way up and they still could not see me wide or splattering.

So I really don’t much appreciate the one or two that inevitably find it necessary to break my pile up rhythm with angry hoots or “helpful advice” to turn down my mic gain insisting that my signal is all over the band. Some of the locals have also commented that wherever I run I always seem to attract other loud stations slammed up tight on either side of me. My 20 over neighbors seem to have no problems with me, nor I with them thanks to the crunch proof front end on my DEMI transverter; so I know for sure it isn’t me that’s wide or splattering! Sometimes I really want to ask them “How good is YOUR radio?” but I don’t really have the inclination or the time during a contest to fight about it so I just thank them, say I’ll look into it and move on.

I often get 30, 40 and even 50 over reports. Hey when I’m that loud your 20 year old or new jack-of-all-trades HF radio with 6M thrown in as an afterthought probably can’t handle it! Not many can. Sometimes I get a little testy when they come back 2 or three times or tell me I should QRT and fix “my problem” but generally I just let it go. I know it’s just ignorance of how radio works in the real world, however it still really bugs me! -- 73 de Bob2 K2DRH

-- K2DRH