ARRL January VHF Contest - 2022
Call: N2NT
Operator(s): N2NT N2NC WW2Y
Station: N2NT
Class: Limited Multi-Op HP
QTH: FN20si
Operating Time (hrs): 27
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 293 57
2: 289 47
222: 75 24
432: 112 25
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 769 153 Total Score = 145,809
Club: Mt Airy VHF Radio Club
Comments:
Between Christmas and New Year's, we checked status of the N2NT VHF/UHF station.
Everything looked good, except high SWR on 2 meters, which tripped out the
trusty Larcan amp. A quick scan with an AIM-4170 in TDR mode told us the
problem was at the antenna. Andy climbed the tower and isolated the issue to the
lower antenna of the stack. We lowered that antenna and its feedline to the
ground. While up the tower, another problem was found. The EMOTO rotor shelf
needed to be replaced and re-drilled. The 2 meter stack is on a mast that also
has 40, 20 and 10 meter HF yagis! Less than a week later, we had the antenna
fixed (new feedline) and the parts to replace the rotator shelf. Luckily, there
was some mild (for January) weather and Andy was able to fix everything before
the contest.
Peter, WW2Y, and I really enjoyed the contest. Conventional SSB and CW kept us
busy for the first several hours. Peter especially gets a workout moving
between 6/222/432 from one radio. Didn't spend much time on FT8 until about 02Z
the first night.
Bands seemed good to the west most of the time. We even had some VE3's call in
on 432 SSB, which is not normal.
The first day/night, Andy operated the NAQP CW while we did VHF. Wish there
wasn't a conflict.
6m opend to W4 (AL/FL/GA) for a little bit Sunday, but it didn't last long and
signals never got very strong, except a half hour around 17Z.
I doubt we would have made these many QSOs without FT8. Lots of really weak
stuff on 6 and 2. Wave's of "DX" decodes popped up on 6m FT8 all day
on Sunday. Don't know what that is -- brief (minutes) periods of sporadic E?
Strong local signals make it hard to squeeze the digital stuff into 3 kHz and
still decode the weak ones. As SDRs becomes the norm, I think we should learn
to spread out a bit more instead of cramming it all into the bandwidth of an SSB
channel. WSJT-X can decode 5 kHz at once. Why don't we at least start there?
Thanks for all the QSOs and thanks to the rovers, which were out in some really
cold WX!
73,
John, N2NC, for the N2NT VHF team
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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