Well, another contest is in the bag. As VHF contests go, this one was my
best in quite a few years. I was somewhat disappointed in the less than
stellar propagation I'd expect for a June contest and the lack of both 222
and 1296 activity down here in the heart of nowhere. Additionally, even
with a red blob hanging over the southeast half a day Sunday, there was
little to no activity from my location in Virginia south. My big point
maker was the new redesigned and optimized monster M2 6 meter yagi I
installed 3 days prior to the contest. It helped me snag 107 grid squares
on 6 meters! Anyone looking for an almost new Cushcraft A50-6S? I doubt
that I will be putting it back on the tower.
Speaking of tower, despite an all-out attempt by Murphy to end my operation
Saturday evening, I was able to operate the entire contest without any
significant equipment issues. At 9PM Saturday my antennas stopped rotating.
The array (used for terrestrial & EME) would not turn either direction or
elevate. It had just gotten dark, so I grabbed a light and headed out the
check out the problem. I lowered the tower down and climbed into my
strategically located (under the VHF tower) man lift and went up.
Apparently, my rotor controller or software had lost the rotation limit
settings and rotated the to far and yanked the control wires out of the
rotor! This was a first in the 3 years it has been up. I lost about 1
hour of operating time making the repair. The rest of the contest things
went smoothly except with 20 minutes remaining my 432 amp tripped a
protection circuit that would not reset. I'll check out that issue later
this week.
de K3SK
Dave Buckwalter
FM07 - Farmville VA
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