ARRL September VHF Contest - 2022
Call: W3SO
Operator(s): WR3Z W3XOX W3SF KC3UEX W3IDT
Station: W3SO
Class: Limited Multi-Op HP
QTH: WPA
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 140 41
2: 138 44
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 278 85 Total Score = 23,630
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
The best part of the contest was the first 3 or so hours.
And not for the reasons you may think.
Read on.
Friday night was spent updating Win 10 on all the networked shack computers -
which took forever, even with the new Internet dish on the tower and somewhat
higher download speed. The previous dish took a lightning hit, which also fried
some of the electronics. Updating N1MM+ and WSJT was trivial compared to Win
10.
So, we're all set on Saturday. Half-hour or so before start time, power up the
equipment for the two bands we currently have in operation. Check the swr on the
2m stack and the single operational high 6m beam. 2m is fine (but see later),
but the 6m beam is much worse than 3:1. Did we say, lightning hit? Can't expect
to load that with the amp. Now what?
Tom, W3SF, says, "oh, I have a spare 5 element in my garage". And, we
happen to have the left-over field-day 30' tilt-base tower with a tri-bander
on-site. So... Tom goes and gets the beam from his garage. Barry, WR3Z, goes in
to start the contest on 2m, while Kevin, W3XOX, Tom, Garrett, 15-year-old,
KC3UEX, and I set out some saw-horses and, in quick order, have a 5 element 6m
beam built to the manual's specifications for the lowest part of 6m. Lower the
tower, remove the tri-bander; attach the new 6m beam. Get some new coax to run
to the VHF shack (the tri-bander coax ran to a separate HF/shop cabin). Hoist
the tower back up. Check the tuning. Oops, resonates somewhere around 49.5 with
real lousy swr near 50.2MHz. Lower the tower again - should, of course, have
checked the tuning before raising the tower. Duh.
Get a short piece of coax, attach to the beam, and check the tuning. It's worse.
Oh, beam pointing straight into the ground. Raise tower slightly, rotate beam so
it's pointing sky-ward. Diddle with the gamma match for a while. Get the tuning
about right. Re-attach coax to the VHF shack, and raise the tower again. Now
have to get the rotator and control cable from the HF/shop cabin to the VHF
shack. Keeps the door propped open. Moths and other things fly in all day and
night.
And we're ready to contest on 6m. Sorry, guys, between conditions and our
makeshift antenna, we were pretty weak all weekend. We did go to SSB at the top
of most EVEN UTC hours, but had very limited success - a contact or 2 or 3 per
15 minutes or so. Even worse for CW on the ODD hours.
Sunday morning, while Kevin and Garrett are operating, flames shoot out of the
jumper between the 2m amp and the 1-7/8' hardline to the 2m stack. Inspection
suggests that maybe it had too sharp a bend - center conductor to braid short
and a broken jacket - but it lasted many years. New - longer - jumper and we're
back on the air.
Even FT8 contacts were hard to make. Interesting to watch the waterfall, and see
one loud burst / decode, then nothing. Made a few Eskip / Tropo contacts, the
rest were effectively locals.
As I said, the first three hours: Best part of the contest.
Bob, w3idt
for Kevin, w3xox; Tom, w3sf; Garrett, kc3uex; and Barry, wr3z.
Wopsononock Mountaintop Operators, W3SO.
Breakdown:
50 CW 2
50 FT8 116
50 SSB 22
50 140 QSOs 41 Grids
144 CW 1
144 FT8 101
144 SSB 36
144 138 QSOs 44 Grids
Total 278 QSOs 85 Grids
Score 23,630
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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