CQ Worldwide VHF Contest
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: EN41vr
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 365 105
2: 103 36
-------------------
Total: 468 141 Total Score = 80,511
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
All the antennas were working good except the rotor for the small 5el 6M at 20
ft, an old Radio Shack TV rotor that lunched the gears with no hope of getting
parts since the company that made it is out of business. I fixed it on W5
preparing for the usual TX/NM onslaught, but that was not to be. Total
makeover of the station for this contest, used my month old Flex 6700 on 6 and
through the old DEMI transverter on 2M. Actually turned out to be pretty easy
to integrate the rest of the hardware with the Flex but a lot harder to get it
all working with N1MM Logger and the WSJT programs. More computer stuff than
radio stuff, lots to learn! Configured two panadapters for 6 and 2 and quickly
found out that WSJT will only work on the one panadapter or slice since you can
only set the in/out ports in the WSJT programs to the configuration of one
slice.
N1MM + is bit quirky too where it shifts the transmit focus. If you hit the
band change buttons it will change both TX and RX but if you only put the
cursor in the box for the other VFO to start typing a call it only changes the
RX and not the TX .. a point of much frustration and a mistake I made many
times over during the contest! Also found the F8 previous frequency shortcut to
be less than useful as it doesn’t remember it for each slice and several times
wound up changing the entire slice from one band to the other! Also there does
not seem to be a way to transfer a call from one VFO window to the other one
without retyping it that I can figure out anyway. And I had plenty of time to
look at the manual on line during this test!
The N1MM domestic call Az bearings are useless for VHF contesting when you type
in a call since it only gives you a regional heading unless you type in the grid
too. And even then it’s to the center of the grid (pretty useless for close-in
grids) so obviously the advertised automatic QRZ lookup is not used for US calls
(and it does not include the Buckmaster Hamcall lookup function anymore to
offset this). Fine for HF but terrible for 2M and above contesting. Had to
run my Buckmaster separately and that’s a PITA typing twice and changing
focus if it’s on the same computer. Grabbing a spot off the bandmap will
give you the six digit and an accurate heading but I found most bandmap spots
to be totally useless anyway. Also wish the CQer would stop when you hit the
PTT and TX, not just when you type something.
Saturday seemed promising in the morning but 6M died out completely as the
contest began. There were some stations hanging around still hoping so it was
easy get them in the log but after the first hour or the rate died off to
practically nothing for the rest of the afternoon. Activity on 2M has been
going down steadily over the past 10 years but I’m sure NAQP RTTY didn’t
help much either. I’m kinda getting sick of those NAQP guys scheduling direct
conflicts with major VHF contests like they don’t matter. Over 50 SMC
stations got on for the ARRL June Contest but most of those stations were doing
RTTY for the club competition, so it does matter a whole lot! In the evening
we had about an hour and a half of moderate Es with lots of fast fading into
W1/2/3 but it didn’t have any real depth to it like it usually does.
Generally I can work a barrel full of FN42 during an opening like this but this
time there were only 8 QSOs! Only 12 in FN20! But it was still the high point
of the day.
When it was over, 2M was almost a desert with very few stations on in the early
evening into the night like there used to be. WSJT QSOs were also like pulling
teeth for some reason. Lots of guys announced CQ, but few stuck with it and few
answered my CQs. And the rox were struggling to burn on 2M, not at all like the
summer conditions one would expect. Two meter QSOs and grids were way down.
Like Jeff says people are still struggling with the rules since they are not
like the normal interaction in the Ms forums, and I had to ignore or reject
several potential QSOs with much needed mults because of the way they were
presented so I could stay legal. This needs to change, and embracing the ARRL
rules or at least some of them might be the answer.
Sunday morning was a total disaster. Several huge lines of thunderstorms were
crossing the Midwest bringing depressed conditions on 2M and stations
disconnecting for safety. At one point I was sandwiched in between two fronts
that moved slowly and made horrendous noise in all directions making WSJT all
but impossible. Really held things back until the storms cleared out by about
10AM but by then most of locals seem to have given up. Around 7:30 AM right in
the middle of a QSO the lights went out, never to return until late afternoon.
Fired up the generator hoping to be off it in a while, but wound up on it for
the duration of the contest. Normally the station runs fine on low power during
the ARRL tests, but with the high power amps running the generator did not like
it. If the A/C, the refrigerator and the well pump came on at the same time it
wound up single phasing when one generator breaker would pop out.
It was probably during one of those excursions that the rotator control for the
6M array tower got scrambled and lost its calibration knocking it 60 degrees
off. Unfortunately since most of my QSOs were local and on the other tower with
both 6 and 2M antennas, I didn’t realize it until after the end of the
contest. If I had I could have been louder for the spotty FL/W4 opening that
persisted most of the late morning until the last hour of the contest. Except
for a few short lived bubbles unfortunately that was pretty much the only place
it ever opened to on Sunday and the depth has never been there to run up big
numbers. Kept hearing the same stations for hours and wound up with lots of
dupes from calling CQ.
73 de Bob
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