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

6m DX the week of June 7 2021

 6m here in FN42la was somewhat dead for 6 days in a row, which is somewhat unusual for the month of June. The previous big opening here was on June 4, which I talked about in my blog post "Another big US-EU opening 2021 June 4." 

Finally, on June 11th, we started to see some signs of life, including some DX excitement. I was decoding TZ4AM in Mali, but he wasn't hearing me. Still, very exciting:

Next up, as I previously mentioned was S01WS in Western Sahara. I managed to get a single sequence back from him, but never got 73's, so I logged it but didn't expect it to be valid. 

Luckily, I was able to work him again on Sunday June 13th. The propagation path was very specific, it was hitting the Azores and the Canaries, with a little bit of southern Spain, then mainland Africa. 

Meanwhile, in the other direction it was wide open, including some double-hop to the west. 

-Steve

Busy June 2021 contest weekend

 This was a busy radio weekend. First, the N4EME crew set up in rare grid FN57 in Northern Maine. I tried with them on FT8 on Friday night but wasn't successful. The next morning I got on the chat server and saw they were working folk on 6m meteor-scatter, MSK144 on 50.260. I don't have a lot of meteor scatter experience, but I gave it a shot an was decoding them on pretty regular pings. I was able to quickly work them and then focus on getting ready for the ARRL June VHF contest. 

The June Contest is usually dominated by 6m activity, and now with FT8, that can make it somewhat boring. I love operating 6m FT8, but it's not super fun during a contest. I find there are soo many people on that I have a hard time completing contacts. So, off we went and of course, we ended up having a massive opening to the Caribbean, which normally is great, but a lot of times the DX stations aren't running in contest mode, so you have to either switch WSJT-X out of contest mode or run JTDX at the same time (Which is what I did). In the end I worked number of the DX stations, including:

TO11A - Guadalupe

PJ2BR - Curacao

VP9NM - Bermuda

HK3O - Colombia

PJ4NX - Bonaire

HK3W - Colombia

9Y4D - Trinidad and Tobago

8P2K - Barbados

J79WTA - Dominica

PV8DX - Brazil

NP3YL - Puerto Rico

I had recently been complaining that we hadn't had much activity in the Caribbean this season, but this list seems to say otherwise. 

The big DX news for the weekend happened further to the north. I was able to work Bo, OX3LX, who is operating in Greenland. Bo has been there since the previous Tuesday, but I hadn't been able to hear him at all. We finally got the opening during the contest and I was able to grab him before he had a big pileup. 

After that the other DX was Western Sahara in Africa, S01WS. I've been seeing other folks work him on and off for a while, and I've occasionally had a few decodes from him, but again, was finally able to work him. I had a busted QSO earlier in the week, this times I was able to confirm it. 

The contest was a low priority effort for me. My main goal was to get my voice capabilities working again for 6m, which I was successful at doing. Calling CQ on 6m SSB was a lot more fun than operating FT8, and it produced a number of contacts, faster than digital. 

The end result was about 14k points

 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
    50  FT4     17      17    8   1.0
    50  FT8     47      47   36   1.0
    50  USB     54      54   31   1.0
   144  FT8     20      20    9   1.0
   144  USB      5       5    3   1.0
   420  USB      7      14    6   2.0
 Total  Both   150     157   93   1.0
Score: 14,601

2020 ARRL September VHF Contest

 I didn't really have time to do much operating this weekend, Saturday was Soccer game and kid stuff. Later in the afternoon I got for a bit and tried to get 222 and 432 running. I somehow ended up blowing my 222 Amp. I had it outputting 300W and the next thing I know, it was down to zero watts. I probably blew the FET, new ones appear to be around $100, if i'm lucky. After further troubleshooting, the SWR on my 222 antenna is up over 5:1, which the FET didn't like. 

Sunday afternoon I managed to cobble 432 back on the air and worked a couple of mostly local stations, with the exception of WB1GQR in FN33, Vermont, but they usually are on a mountaintop. My 432 is only a 6 foot book and it's basically pointing right into trees. Anyhow, 50w and a few contacts. 

I have better 432 and 222 antennas on the ground waiting to go up, I'm waiting for the weather to get a little cooler. With luck, everything will be working for January. 

Band conditions didn't seem very good. I tried with VE1SKY in FN74, he was hearing me, but I didn't hear him at all. Better luck in January.  

Final Score: 2,312

6m:  21q 13g

2m: 27q 13g

222: 1q 1g

432: 9q 7g

Best DX: 

To the North: 2m VE2PN in Quebec, FN46

To the South: 6m K1HTV in VA, FM18

2M opening from North Carolina to Nova Scotia

 It started yesterday, September 7th, I got a text from Jeff, AJ1L that 2m was open to North Carolina. I worked my way down into the shack to hear K1ISR S9+20 in North Carolina, grid square FM06. I had a quick chat with him and then looked for some digital signals. I found Dave, K1RZ, in FM19 Maryland on FT8. I then worked a few other coastal stations, all with great signals. 

I left the radio on and when I came down into my office to start work the morning of September 8th, I heard some activity on FT8. I quickly nabbed Bill, VA1WV in FN75, Springhill, Nova Scotia. FN75 was a new grid for me! VE1SKY was next in the log, to the south of Bill in FN74. 

Later that evening, after the kids were put to bed, I came into my shack to find the band wide open up and down the coast. K1ISR was back on to the south and VE1SKY was back on to the north! I had a great evening and worked a number of stations, including:

VE1SKY in FN74

AB4SF in FM17

K1RZ in FM19

KD4AA in FM17

W3BFC in FM28

N4ASF in FM27

W3BJ in FM27

KD2QED in FM29

K1ZE in FN31

NG4C in FM16 (although WSJT went braindead)

KD8UD in FM17

All of these QSOs were armchair copy, very easy to work everyone. Most signals were S9+

Here is what the APRS map looked like:

And here is what Hepburn looked like (it's gotten better over the years!)

I think it's safe to say that the big excitement for lots of folks down south was that the opening was really from the NC/VA/MD coast all the way up to Nova Scotia. Roger, VE1SKY was the Belle of the Ball and had folks calling him from every grid between FM06 and FN74. I took a quick video on my phone and posted it to Youtube here:

It would be great if this could hold out for the weekend, as this coming weekend is the ARRL September VHF conference. Experience tells me that the band will be EXCELLENT on Friday and will die about 1pm on Saturday (the contest starts at 2pm). 

Tropo the day before the contest!

This weekend is the UHF contest, and of course, we had a bit of tropo the nigh before! I missed most of it, even after N1ZZN texted me. I was busy watching "All the President's Men".

Anyhow, I ran downstairs and worked three stations: N4HB, KD8UD and KD4AA, all in FM17. I didn't hear any of the beacons, so this seemed like a very narrow path. The APRS map isn't detailed enough, but gives and ok representation.

CQ VHF WW Contest this weekend!

This weekend is the CQ VHF WW contest. Contest start is 1800 UTC (2pm EDT), end time is 2100 UTC Sunday (5pm EDT). This contest is 50MHz and 144MHz only, the rules can be found here.

I plan on operating a good portion of the weekend.

Dick Bean, K1HC, and his son Kevin, KB1EAN, will be roving up into some rare grids up in Maine. Here is the email he sent to the Morning 205 report:

I am planning a Rover effort up to Maine for the CQ WW VHF 

contest with my son, Kevin, KB1EAN.  

7/21: FN53 (Pemaquid Point), FN54 (overnight in Bangor)

7/22:  FN 54 (Bangor), FN64 (lunch at Helen's in Machias - 

can't miss that), FN 66 (Houlton), FN56 (Oakley), FN55 (just 

south of Patten), then overnight again in Bangor before we 

head back to MA. 

I will have 100 watts on 6 and 2 meters (SSB/CW) with my 

Kenwood TSB-2000/RC-2000 and loop antennas so we will 

operate while in motion with one of us driving and the other 

operating.  It's our first Rover attempt so I'm sure we'll learn a 

lot and eat some great lobster as well!

73,

Dick, K1HC

See you on the air!

Upcoming VHF/UHF/Microwave Events

Upcoming VHF/UHF/Microwave events:



7/21-22/2012:  CQ WW VHF Contest - I'll be operating from the home QTH in FN42la


8/4-5/2013: ARRL UHF Contest - I'll be up at K1WHS in Maine


8/18-19/2012:  ARRL 10GHz cumulative contest - first weekend

9/8-9/2012:  ARRL September VHF QSO Party - I'll be up at K1WHS in Maine


9/15-16-2012: ARRL 10GHz cumulative contest - second weekend

June VHF Contest 2012

This past weekend I operated up at K1WHS in FN43mj. We decided that it would be a laid back weekend and we would do a few repair jobs and take it easy operating. The weather was absolutely perfect the whole weekend and we had a great time. We several cocktail hours and did some pretty good damage on a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. It was a small crew, just 4-5 of us. Dave, KM3T, came up for his first time on Saturday and had a lot of fun working 2m and a big part of the 6m opening. 6 was open for a long period on Saturday and we were working guys all over. We called it quits early (11pm) and some of them started back up around 6am. I decided to sleep it and didn't wake up 'till 8am. We started right back into relaxation mode, only sitting in front of the 222 and 432 positions for 20-30 minutes at a time. 6 would open up for a little bit here and there, and then we ended up working a really nice opening to Europe. Art, K1BX, worked over 60 stations and numerous grids well into eastern europe. When that died down, 6 was really slow, so we decided to go out to lunch. We got back around 2:30pm and 6 was still dead, but soon opened up in a big way.

At the end of the day we had 1200+ Q's and 305 grids on 6m alone. Our score was somewhere north of 750k.

The only downer for the weekend was that we didn't have any microwaves. The rotor for the microwave stack self-destructed sometime last year and Dave had to take it down off the tower on Saturday. He thinks it can be rebuilt, we'll be back on the microwaves for September.

September Contest Season begins....

This weekend is the ARRL VHF September QSO Party, I'll be operating up at K1WHS in Maine. Next weekend is the second weekend of the ARRL 10GHz cumulative contest. I don't have a set plan yet, but I'll likely be driving all around Cape Cod one of the two days. There is talk about going up to Mt. Washington, but that's a lot of driving for a single weekend!

After the second weekend of the 10GHz contest we have the fall sprints:

* 144 MHz - Monday, September 20, 7 pm to 11 pm local time
* 222 MHz - Tuesday, September 28, 7 pm to 11 pm local time
* 432 MHz - Wednesday, October 6, 7 pm top 11 pm local time
* Microwave - Saturday, October 16, 6 am to 12 pm local time
* 50 MHz - 2300 UTC Saturday, October 30 to 0300 UTC Sunday, October 31.

Full rules can be found here.

Get on the air, even if it's only one contact!

September ARRL VHF QSO Party this weekend

This weekend is the September ARRL VHF QSO Party. I've been invited to operate up at K1WHS in Maine, FN43mj. I can't wait, should be a good time. I'll be sure to post some pictures next week!
I'm not sure what bands I'll be operating, but I'll still have fun.

Cool video from Colorado 14'er event

I just read this on K0NR's blog, it's some great video of N0B operating for the Colorado 14'er event. Check out both of their blogs, good stuff!

10 GHz Contest, Weekend #1

The first weekend of the ARRL 10GHz Cumulative Contest was last weekend, the 15th and 16th of August. I had really desired to be a little more organised this year in an effort to increase my score over previous years. I managed (or so I thought) to get all the gremlins out of my equipment, and even had enough spare time beforehand to put together a spreadsheet of all the operators who planned on going out for the first weekend, their locations, and their mobile phone numbers. I was far too organised for this to be a smoothe weekend :)

First stop, I planned on being at Mt. Kearsarge from the time the gate opens (9:30a) to closing (6pm). I hadn't even made it to the gate when I realised that I forgot the antenna mast for the 2m ssb antenna. Hrm...well, there is a hardware store down the street from the mountain, I'm sure I could find something there. I did, a 5' 1.5" wooden dowell would do the trick. Thankfully I had a roll of gaffers tape with me to secure the antenna down. Ok, problem solved, off to the mountain! Next problem, they are painting the yellow lines on the road to Kearsarge. Ok, a few minute delay, not a big deal. Well, I get to the gate and the woman tells me I have yellow road paint all over the drivers side of my car and in the wheel well. GRRRR! I didn't drive over the line, just all the arosal they use to spray the lines collected via the vaccum action of the car. Luckily that will come off, with some elbow grease. I noticed the first 3-4 cars up on the mountain all had the same problem.

On to the mountain! I get set up fairly quickly and start to have a normal day contesting, but it was HOT! I had plenty of water with me, but I was getting baked. I had tried using this bugsparay/sunscreen that was on sale at CVS, but It clearly didn't work for either purpose. I got eaten alive and burned to a crisp. I'm not really complaining about that, it happens every year, I've learned to just deal with it. About noon time I start having a re-occuring issue with my rig, the main T/R relay isnt' switching when I'm transmitting. That means I'm putting 8 watts into a relay that isn't terminated! I figured out that it was my sequencer board, one of the relay contacts was intermittent due to a bad solder joint. I found that if I put pressure on the relay it would switch. I could continue the rest of the day like that and fix it at the hotel.....had I not broken a wire of the sequencer board while troubleshooting. D'OH!!! Well, off to Radio Shack I go. There has to be a Radio Shack here in town, right? WRONG! The closest I could find was 40 minutes away. Off I go.....

(Note to self: When packing the night before a contest rover trip, if you have the soldering iron in your hand and say to yourself "Nah, I won't need this"....ignore the inner voice, take it with you)

I finally get to the destination, only to discover this store is about as small as I've ever seen. I kept thinking "there's NO way they sell soldeing irons, I'm screwed". But, I asked the woman behind the counter and was shocked to find that they had no less than 5 types of irons and 8-10 types of solder! I take back all those bad things about Radio Shack over the years, they saved my bacon this day!



Now, here I am in a Rat Shack parking lot, the back of my car open, inverter running, soldering iron getting hot. In about 15 minutes I have the fixes in place and it seems to be working......Ok, back to the mountain.

After some mid-day traffic and a lunch break, I make it back to the mountain around 3pm to find Byron, N1EKV, making some contacts. I pull in next to him and get set back up. The rest of the day was fine, but they relay problem wasn't 100% fixed, there was something still wrong.

I managed to make 22 contacts at Kearsarge, which was the most I've ever made there (17 the previous year). I can only imagine I would have snagged a few more had I not made a 3 hour detour. I was the first person up the mountain, and I was the last one down (As the park ranger sat, staring at her watch). Now, on to my long haul to Gorham, NH at the no-tell Motel.

I had booked this room at an amazingly cheap rate of $50 a night. Afterwards I saw some really horrible reviews online. I expected the worse, but was pleasantly surprised. Everything was clean, no worries. So, I dragged the battery, battery charger and Microwave rig in and got to work. As it turns out, my parking lot soldering session was mis-guided. I completely missed the bad solder joint, but re-flowed a number of working joints :) I re-flowed the bad joint, and I finally fixed the problem. I got a good nights rest and was up at the crack of dawn to be at the gate at the Mt. Washington auto road at 7:30am.

Oh...my....lord....the Mt. Washington Auto Road has got to be about the scariest drive you can make in a car. I've driven to the top of Pike's Peak (14,110ft) a number of times, but that was cake compared to this road. There was one point that I wasn't sure I was going to make it :) My fear of heights was in full swing, my knuckles were as white as ever.....but I made it.

I met N1JEZ, W1AIM and K1LPS at the mountain. We grouped together and had a really great day on Washington. Some of the highlights were working WA2FGK in Fn31bf at over 500 kilometers, VE3FN in both FN14 and FN15, and VE2JWH in nearby FN45 and FN46. All in all, I made 33 contacts in 12 grids. 12 grids in one day!!



It was a long, exhausting ride home, but well worth it. I'm alreadying hatching plans for the second weekend. Look for me on Saturday roving on Cape Cod. I'm likely going to be at 4 locations, including Marconi Station, FN51av. Sunday isn't planned yet, but I may look at doing a CT/RI/MA costal run for three spots. Tune in for more details!