CQ Worldwide VHF Contest
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: EN41vr IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 380 145
2: 157 54
-------------------
Total: 537 199 Total Score = 138,106
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
During the June VHF the stationary W1/W2/W3 6M antenna was useless when the band
opened that way, so it had to come down to be fixed. Unfortunately
circumstances kept me on the road almost constantly in the interim and the
initial attempt at an easy fix proved futile. It had to be rebuilt with a new
DE and all new coax and there was no time to do it except the day before the
CQWW VHF. Luckily the 100 degree temps eased off a little and it was almost
balmy at 90 degrees. Still a lot of hot nasty work right before a contest, but
if the band opened to W1/W2 when it was still open in anther direction then it
would be worth it. Of course, not a single opening to W1/W2/W3 ever happen all
weekend and if I made a half dozen QSOs on that antenna it was a lot. Oh well,
at least its fixed.
Saturday dawned with the promise of really excellent tropo like the huge
opening the night before (which I missed due to the antenna work) that lasted
through the morning of the contest. But by contest time the heat of the day
all but killed it, and it never came back. While conditions became somewhat
enhanced at times, tropo conditions were nothing like previous years. The
contest started great with 6M open to FL and the SW at the same time. It
shifted from FL to TX but the W and NW stayed in all afternoon with a few short
double hop periods. In other words pretty much nobody was on 2M at all.
After an uneven three hours Es really slowed way down and kept up with
scattered small footprint openings until evening. Rates were only fair due to
the relative density in the open areas and it dried up a lot, so a lot of
stations out 200-300 miles were calling in the pileup. I took advantage of
QSYing them to 2M, making it difficult to keep a run frequency on a quickly
changing band. Evening tropo was decent but there did not seem to be a lot of
stations to work
Even after it slowed down most of the tropo Qs started out on 6m since mostly
everyone continued to listen there. It harder to find and work the long haul
tropo stuff when you start on 6M since its much quieter on 2M and most folks
have much better antennas. Itâ??s even harder when you have to pick them out
between the 40 over Es giants. If you have a large tropo array then stations
at 400 miles plus can be worked relatively easily on 6M after 2M since you
already know where they are. But itâ??s all but impossible to find them when
6m is even moderately open and the QRN, splatter and intermod whine is
assaulting your ears.
The band and power line noise from all the heat was terrible all day and
didnâ??t let up during the WSJT sked time. I only made 2 skeds figuring I
could pick up a lot of randoms like previous years, especially since the rules
now allow CQ announcements. But there were relatively few stations besides the
multis announcing and it was really hard to hear anything to west. I tried to
concentrate on 2M hoping I could pick up the W1/2/3 grids on 6M the next day,
but that was not to be. CQing to the east on 2M didnâ??t yield much at all
even with high power so I went to bed frustrated for about 3 hours sleep.
Sunday dawned much quieter and I had a little better luck with WSJT, but there
was no tropo enhancement to speak of. That made for a very slow morning. I
was able to take advantage of the high power and the high 6M antenna to work
some weak small area openings to the FM, EM grids and FL, but Es was mostly a
bust.
I was finally able to get stations to call back on 2M but during a 4 corner
grid run with K9JK/R my 2M intermediate brick gave up the ghost and killed my
output almost completely. I bought my TE Systems 2M brick roughly 25 years ago
used, and after 48 states on tropo and well over 10,000 QSOs it really has
served me well, as have the ones on 6M, 222 and 432. Using the transverter
tweaked to full bore I was still able to drive the 8877 to about 300W so at
least I could still function, but low power and relatively poor conditions did
not make it as much fun as it is to run high power in the CQWW VHF once a year.
Luckily Iâ??m used to running 200W in the ARRL contests, but the higher power
definitely draws in stations a lot further away, so Iâ??m sure my 2M grid total
suffered a tad.
By noon a slow morning got even slower as 6M Es never materialized. 2M was
also a vast wasteland and CQs went unanswered for long periods. It was a very
long and tiring day that started out unexciting and tapered off from there.
Definitely not my favorite kind of conditions for a contest.
73 de Bob2 K2DRH
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