Mid-season summary: Weird start....

 Comparing this Es season to the previous two seasons, this one has been weird for me. Here's the rough highlights:

- One big EU opening (I was traveling and missed it)

- Only a few big domestic openings

- One decent JA opening on the 12th of June (worked 7 JA and some new grids)

- Lots of TEP this season (Worked a number of new grids plus new DXCC)

Misses so far:

- ZP5 during one of the TEP openings

- KH6 - for state number 49, had half a QSO, but didn't complete

- D44 in Cape Verde

- D2UY in Angola

Somehow I still have managed to work 50+ new grids so far:

Angola on 6m

 

Angola showed up briefly on 6m today:

I turned the amp up to 500W, but they faded after 4 decodes. A few other stations heard him as well, but of the operators that I chatted with, nobody made a contact.

Hawaii on 6M

 

Almost! I heard him for a number of sequences, got a signal report back but couldn't complete.  

First EU of the 2022 Season

 The first opening to EU in 2021 was on May 19th, this season got off to a very late start. The first EU that I hear here was on June 1st, and I was not in front of the radio!

It was a relatively small opening, looking forward to the rest of the season.

More 6M TEP - Quick opening to Brazil

 I snagged a quick QSO with PY1MHZ today on 6M ft8 via TEP propagation. 

 

The bigger stations near me were giving reports of ZP, LU and other PYs being loud. 

6M TEP, the start of a new Sporadic E season

 Timing is everything in life....

I noticed some bigger stations calling CQ SA, so I spun the beam around and just got a few decodes from LW2EDM, so I gave him a call when he finished with the other station. He came right back and boom, was in the log! PSK reporter showed there were a few other LUs that heard me, but I didn't see any decodes from them:

Can't wait for the new Es to begin!

January VHF Contest - notes

 I didn't put an effort into this contest, the only working band right now is 6M. I spent most of the time (per usual) cleaning up the shack/office. Here are my notes:

- VP9NM: Bermuda was in for a while on Sunday. I was hearing him regardless of direction. 

- PV8AAS: Seems like we got a little TEP. I only got a single decode, but lots of other stations were working him:

- Had a lot of band noise pointing towards the Caribbean and South America. 

- Finally got the LP-100A power meter installed on 6m. Wow, this thing is nice!

- Final score was 34Q in 16 grids for a grand total of 544!

Winter Sporadic E - shack rebuilding

 Last August I had some system integration issues with my station that kept me off the air for a number of months. May last log entry was from August 5th, with N2RJ on 6m FT8. I had a really tremendous 6m season in 2021, but my shack was in an epic wiring nightmare. Halfway through the season I integrated my Larcan 1KW and and also moved to using an Airspy R2 for my main RX. 

The result of both integrations was rats nest of splitters, pre-amps, relays, control boards, and DC wiring. Work and life got busy, I pushed it aside and started dreaming of the 2022 Es season. 

This past week I decided that I really missed having a working station, so I every so slow started to pull all the cables apart. At the same time I started integrating a new station computer, a mini system that has a ton of CPU and memory, but the size of a mac-mini. 

A clean slate. I got the 6M station wired up to the power supply and antenna and audio interface. Simple, nothing fancy. I could heard signals again!

I was somewhat surprised at the level of local 6m FT8 activity, it seemed like much more than last winter. This is a good thing. 

This Saturday evening, around 9pm local, I started to hear some mid-west stations calling and I managed to get a few in the log:

K9WKJ   EN44 
WO0Z   EN34 
K0DAS   EN42 
K9DLI   EN42
AA9JS   EN51
KX9X   EN50
WA8TTM   EM79
N0LWF   EN10
WB8EJN   EM48
K4XXX   EM77
KC9VVX   EN60
W4RXR   EM65
N9FN   EN60
KG5JJ   EM26
XE2X   EL06
WT9J   EM59
K0GU   DN70
NG1H   EL06
KC0MAS   EM28
WB8ZBT   EM55

N3CY   EM74

K0PHP   EM38

K4NO   EM64

N5BO   EM60

Not bad for January!

FN45 completed - 6m and 2m

 

This past saturday I managed to check off FN45 for both 6m and 2m. Peter, KA6U, is on an epic road trip from Floida to Maine, and back, all for the purpose of getting as many states as possible on 222 EME for Worked All States. My 222 system is offline, but luckily for me, he also brought 6m and 2m with him for the non EME times. 

"I plan to be QRV from FN45 Quill Hill in Maine tomorrow morning, Saturday from about 1130UTC until about 2130UTC.  I will be on a 2100 foot hill in a flat open plain in Maine.  I will be running a KW, 3 el 6M M2 Yagi at 30 feet with EME quality preamp.  I may also run my 2M station 7 el M2.  In particular I will look for long haul opportunities to the west and southwest.  I will monitor PJ and Slack assuming I have Internet access which is likely (have not been there before).  There is a possibility I could return to the site again early in the week if there is interest."

2021 CQ VHF WW Wrap Up

 I got back from Vacation on Friday in time for the 2021 CQ VHF WW contest, which ran Saturday and Sunday. I had a few things to do on Saturday so I didn't really put in a big effort, we had some sick family members that needed attention and my contest logging situation needed to be worked on. I ended up putting in a pretty full effort on Sunday 'till the end of the contest at 5pm local. Here are the results:

 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q

    50  FT8     63      63   36   1.0

    50  USB     25      25   18   1.0

   144  FT8     24      48   13   2.0

   144  USB      2       4    0   2.0

 Total  Both   114     140   67   1.2

Score: 9,380

1 Mult = 1.7 Q's

6M was open most of Saturday, at least for single-hop. Because I spent a bunch of time getting my logging situation worked out, I didn't end up working as many grids as I could have. I did, however, spend a bunch of time calling CQ on SSB. You can get better rates that sticking with FT8. 

The best contact for the whole weekend was a very brief 2M Sporadic E opening to Minnesota! I worked W0VTT in EN33. I was on vacation the previous week, which was apparently one of the best 2m Es opening since the 1980's here in New England. Timing is everything in life, I guess. 

The APRS map was the first indicator 2m was open

The MUF map showed a high spot over IN/OH

Finally, the stations that I heard/heard me in MN