Everyone's heard the phrase and it does extend to ham radio (and contests) as well ...

"And now for something completely different".

The January VHF Contest is unique. I used to be able to promote it here on the Left Coast by convincing folks we could have a weather based scoring advantage while we're freezing here under partly cloudy skys and mid 60 degree temperatures in the middle of our Southern California Winter. The past three years have been anything but that - unseasonal deluges of rain, sustained winds of 20 to 50MPH in the city, twice that plus gusts in the foothills and mountains. So, no joy, light participation, lower scores than normal and rough if no propagation enhancement.

This year, we were once again in the forecast for more of the same a week before and fortunately it just didn't manifest itself. So, we planned differently and tried a different tactic to get folks to participate on the air. There were folks planning to be on the air for the event from a contest perspective and we used the event to promote folks in CERT, ARES, RACES and other public service organizations to get their folks on the air starting Sunday morning through the end of the event. The idea was to get people from any of the groups or even folks ad hoc, to get on the air with whatever gear they had or wanted to run, from any location, any length of time and on 6/2/1.25/440 using FM!

So, to that end it was a Sunday only event for myself, others were on and off starting Saturday. We worked folks in almost all of the adjacent grids squares here and took advantage of any propagation enhancement to work folks in the further away grid squares. It was stock radio power from the 746Pro on 6/2, 910H on 440, and the venerable 375 with a small power brick on 220. Multiple vertical antennas, loops and modest yagis twisted "sideways" halfway in between vertical and horizontal. Lots of patience, lots of contacts taking as much as an hour or more to complete based on airplane reflections, any odd or random propagation or folks on the remote side playing with their radios and or antennas. We were surprised by six of the four-band contacts being delivered from Yaesu VX-7 "quadband" handhelds and folks in good locations with altitude. We were thankful for all of the folks travelling to a local hamfest in the Yuma area, which helped with the grid count. It was great to hear all of the folks testing out their radios from home and from mobiles throughout the corner of So Cal we live in... great event that i think we can build on again next year.

So, first FM Only event for me, and as mentioned, lots and lots of patience is needed if you've never done this before. Being on the air, calling CQ and getting folks engaged, moving them to other bands and having fun is all part of the success. No huge grid square counts, no big score, no giant band openings, just regular old school FM ... and it was still fun.

'73 - Bruce, KG6IYN