Apparently my first posting of this entry has disappeared: 

Getting ready for the VHF contests this year seems to have reached new levels of absurdity. Skip to the bottom if you want to read all the details about this one, but it is necessary for you to know that I took a lot of EMP style lightning damage the day I returned from Colorado and New Mexico where I went to the CSVHF Conference and then worked the new 222 and above distance contest with W9RM/R the following weekend. Pretty sure I saw the bolt from the Interstate as I drove past my exit to pick up my dog at the kennel. When we got home there were still patches of hail in the grass. 

 The contest started with a total whimper but there were a few stations that I could hear. But none could hear me. With all the repair work and testing I had to do to recover, it never even dawned on me to try to TX SSB. Dead. I wasted the first 20 minutes of the test troubleshooting (I have an audio switching network for two radios) and then replacing the mic. No clue how that happenedconsidering it wasn't actually connected to anything at the time of the strike. 

By then the initial rush of stations was long gone. It really knocked the wind out of my sails since I was already tired from climbing the tower an hour before the test. Conditions seemed generally good on 2M and above but the going was very slow with few stations calling CQ or responding to my calls making my funk even worse. No Es or enhancement on 6M whatsoever, in fact 6M tropo conditions seemed pretty depressed for the most part and failed at the longer distances I can normally work. I was so out of it I even missed working W9FZ/KA9VVQ/R in their first grid. Highlight was having K2YAZ in EM74 at 300 miles find me, and then working him all the way up to 3456 for the first time in quite a few years.

I had 3 computer screens going on and independent RX slices so I was able to see WSJT X from FT8 (practically no JT65) and MSK144 going on the whole afternoon. Apparently that's where everyone went and it was really depressing to see locals working each other there instead of on SSB. So I had to jump to that whenever I saw an opportunity, then try and QSY them to SSB to run some bands if they were local. The short 13 character free message makes QSY instructions a more of challenge to be directed to a call and still be understandable.

Actually there was very little FT8 going on since there was no Es, mostly from locals within 200 miles that worked each other and didn't stick around very long. Most of them on FT8 were running standard reports instead of the new contest mode that came out a few days earlier, and if you replied with a contest grid report instead, they immediately failed open and stubbornly kept repeating the report until you sent them a signal report back so they could mindlessly auto sequence to RRR (I used the free message rather than keep changing modes) ... such is the curse of auto sequencing exacerbated by operator inflexibility to interpret whats going on and manually advance to the next message! Had to send QSY instructions several times too, often to no avail. It was a totally frustrating afternoon and I was glad to get into the evening when some guys actually came back on SSB again. It was better later on the with the actual meteor scatter MSK144 crowd on the PJ page, where folks are more savvy.

I stayed up way too late making up for lost time, miss-set my alarm and woke up an hour late for my morning sked with K0AWU 400 miles away in EN37. Luckily he was still around and we actually worked the bottom 4 on CW/SSB in record time with a bit of enhancement to the north, first time in a long time as we usually have to resort to JT65 on 222 and 432. Too bad there were few stations on to the north. The day went a lot better with a lot more Qs going into the log as more stations got on SSB and were easier to QSY to additional bands. The bands all seemed a bit less depressed except for 6M.  

While never stellar (with no Es and few on ionoscatter), rates were much better on Sunday and I had fun chasing the rovers like W9SZ/KA9VVQ/R, K9JK/R and W9SNR/R; especially a new rover N0LD/R who was generally at the fringe of my rover range out 350 to 450 miles all day but had a great signal on 2M and 222 and gave me a lot of new grids to the west. Things got a bit exciting about 2330Z when I started getting QRM on my normal 144.210 CQ freq and tuned up to 212 to hear W3SO in FN00. We easily worked and then went to 222 and 432 where we worked again. 6M was a bust despite my aggressive antennas, but I was thrilled. It got pretty crazy then juggling the closer in stations with multiple bands that normally get on as the sun goes down and the DX out 500 to 700+ miles to the east and SE. I made lots of noise on the ON4KST 144/432 R2 Chat about the opening and got a lot of takers interspersed with the locals, though a few seemed less interested. Best 2M DX was with AA2UK at 843 miles in FM29. Also worked a rover, N2SLN/R in FN22 on 2M at 746 miles and who later told me he heard my CW on 222 when I was trying to work AA2UK who I could hear S2 with his KW, but could not hear my 100W. The duct did not support 6M but was excellent for 2, 222 and 432. The last hour was hectic chasing last grid rovers and such and the contest seemed like it ended too early.

This has been a truly bad year. After my June test rotor loop recovery the station was firing on all cylinders again and Wyatt AC0RA was able to drive it to a likely 1st place SO finish in CQWW VHF in July when I had family commitments. Imagine my disgust to come home from Colorado to find that lightning had struck yet again (whoever says lightning never strikes in the same place twice wasn't a ham!). This time was really bad. It got TVs, my phone line, internet switch (it slagged the lightning arrestor), router, washing machine, 2 computers connected to the router (and one that wasn't), wall warts even light bulbs. While all my antennas were disconnected from the rigs and all the power strips were unplugged from the walls, it found the the tower mounted preamps and stuff and blew many of them up. Two normally open 6M Stackmatch relays were toast as well as the controller. Neither tower would turn and the controller for the 6M array was damaged. It even bypassed an Alpha Delta arc plug coax switch that was grounded and nailed the output relay on the 6M amp, yet spared the antennas and coax it came in on. The top 2M antenna boom had broken from the wind and my 40M beam balun blew open. The box with the 3456 and 2304 relays preamps and 3456 amp was messed up as well as some microwave sequencers. In retrospect it was a good thing the Flex 6700 was out for repair (low power out) as it would have been connected to the router and taken a hit. 

I had about 3 weeks to get it all together. Well Steve at Demi, Ted at Henry, Richard at K0XG, Jeff at Green Heron, Robert at M2, Joel at RF Connection and Jay at Array Solutions all came through with parts and repairs, some just in the nick of time. I had spares of the SSB preamp stuff that still needs fixing but I know Jerry would have come through if I had asked him. Jay had to find and reprogram a new 6M array controller (the chips in the old one were obsolete) as well as fix the Stackmaster realy box. Richard repaired my motor controller and loaned me a rotor control box while mine was getting fixed, but Jeff had it back in plenty of time. Rebuilt and replaced the 2M antennas. Richard got me new magnetic pulse switches for both towers since both had failed. Working a little (sometimes a lot) every day, by Friday of the contest I had everything repaired, rebuilt or replaced except an intermittent coax relay on 3456 that seemed fine the day before (spent a lot of time on the tower sorting that relay box out).

Since half my computers were gone I had a lot of station software parameter reconfiguring to do that took many hours. My favorite logger (CT) is no more since I blew up my last DOS based computer. N1MM is not very VHF friendly with manually switched microwave transverters and refuses to log a band change manually that contradicts the band input from CAT unless one entry window is disconnected from CAT (so much for my 2M voice keyer). Between it and the Flex I go absolutely mouse click crazy now just to change bands (got to be a better way!). Hard to keep up with all the prop loggers, spreadsheets and chat pages with only 3 screens! But at least I was operational! 

Saturday morning of the contest and the 6M array tower stopped turning, then was counting and indicating incorrectly, but it just required some (panicked last minute) gap adjustment of the pulse switch. The 3456 relay failed completely but a trip up the tower got it working again. I had enough time to take a shower, sit down at the rig and then found the mic had failed .. jeez! The weariness of all that effort just came down on my shoulders like a lead weight! Oh and I still have to deal with the 40M beam this week as well as a my HF antenna switch. I really am getting too old for this crap.

73 de Bob2