I had some free time over a rainy New Year’s holiday and used it to set up the computers and radios for this contest. I even added a sub-receiver to my second Elecraft K3S so both radios now had SO2V capabilities. I made a few contacts in the RU practice session on Friday night and the station seemed to be set up and working properly. It was raining during the practice session however that was supposed to turn into 6 inches of snow through the night and into Saturday morning. It is unusual for it to snow here in NC and when I woke up on Saturday morning there was little snow on the ground, however the trees and cars had a coating of ice. I did not think much of it and did a few chores around the house while waiting for the contest to start. I had lunch and then I went into the shack. I turned the equipment and computers for the contest and at 1800z I started running on 15m and 20m, working around 70-80 stations per hour. After an hour I realized that I should rotate one of my 15m beams more toward the southwest to better suit the band opening. I became quite surprised when it did not turn. In fact none of my 15m beams were rotating. Around this time I also realized that the SWR on all of my homebrew beams was slightly higher than normal. It is sometimes hard to stay in the operating chair when there is something wrong with the station but the rates were good and I was having fun so I tried to put the problem out of my mind for a little while. After a couple of hours I took a short break to investigate the antenna issues. I went outside and saw that my antennas and towers were completely covered with a coating of ice which explained the rotator problems and the higher SWR on my OWA Yagis. It was too dangerous to attempt an on tower rotator repair and applying voltage directly to the motor leads from the shack was not successful at getting the antennas to budge. Luckily most of the stuck antennas were in convenient directions from testing out the station on the previous day so I got back on the air hoping the strong sun would melt the ice and that they would start working again. Unfortunately instead of melting the weather got bitterly cold and the ice remained for several days. The good QSO rates continued through most of the contest and even with the rotator issues it was hard to walk away before putting in the full 24 hours. 20m was the money band and it was the only band where I could run Europe well. Approximately one third of my 20m QSOs were with Europe which really helped my country multiplier total. Most of my 20m beams have prop pitch rotators and they had no problems turning in icy conditions. This was my first time operating this contest and I had to figure out a strategy as I went along. It turned out to be a lot fun! Thanks for the QSOs. Please QSL via WD9DZV.

73,

John KK9A - W4AAA