ARRL June VHF QSO Party
Call: K1TEO
Operator(s): K1TEO
Station: K1TEO
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CT/FN31
Operating Time (hrs): 27.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 297 65
2: 360 72
222: 112 50
432: 147 41
903: 55 31
1.2: 66 33
2.3: 41 26
3.4: 27 19
5.7: 14 11
10G: 1 1
24G:
-------------------
Total: 1121 349 Total Score = 652,979
Club:
Comments:
Lot's of fun in the June contest this year. As was the case last year, the
rovers and the new grids they provide helped offset the lack of Es on 6. This
contest marked a new low for 6 meter Es qso's in a June contest. 3 - count'em -
qso's were made on this mode. Of course the Au was lot's of fun to help make up
for some of the lack of Es. Last year I complained when only 32 e-skip qso's
were made. That's what I get for complaining......hi!
Some observations:
- New personal grid count records set on 144,222, 903,1296,2304 and 3456. If you
told me a few years ago I could work 33 grids on 1296, 26 on 2.3 ghz or 19 on
3.4 ghz during a contest - especially with no openings - I wouldn't have
believed it. Tnx to W3IY, N2LBT , K1DS, KE3HT, WA2IID, AL1VE, N1XKT, WA3GFZ,
VE3NPB, and the other rovers who helped make it possible. Oh, and the AU didn't
hurt the grid totals on 2 and 222 either...
-18 new grids on 6, 16 on 2 and 7 on 222 during the AU. EN52,54,60,71,72,74, and
82 on 222. Best dx on 2 was to K5UR in EM35. Total of about 85 AU qso's on the
bands beginning at 1845z and ending about 2335z. The AU was still going at that
point but 2M acitivity really dropped off and it seemed more local on 6. I was
hearing K1TOL and VE3RM on 6 M au until the end of contest.
-Other than the AU condx, the rest of the contest seemed about normal with some
slight enhancement from time to time. W3IY/R was really loud from FM27 late
Sunday morning. Not bad for that time on such a hot , humid day. One of the
more unique moments was when K5UR in EM35 called on 2M Au while at the same time
W3KWH (EN90)called. KWH is about 400 miles away but he had a T9 tone on cw and
was 20 over nine. UR was s3-5 on Au . I had my beam WNW at the time which is
about 40 degs off of KWH. Must've have been some brief tropo scatter
enhancement. Great to work them together and then get KWH to move up the bands
for some new mults. Did hear UR on 222 AU but no qso.
- Worked new grids toward VUCC on 6,2, and most of the microwave bands.
-Less success on wsjt this time. A few skeds with nothing at all heard. Added 2
grids on 6 and 2 grids on 2 this time.
-Contest started out great - 40 qso's in the first 15 minutes on 6M and then
caught up with a couple of rovers and ran them through the bands. After a
successful first hour, I was working a rover through the bands when the circuit
breaker in my shack blew. Knowing the wx was going to be hot and humid, I had
put a window AC unit in the shack. Apparently the 432 amp and the AC unit
weren't a good combination. When I returned from the basement, turned everything
on, rebooted the PC and found the rover still waiting. But when we got to 10 ghz
I found out I had no rx gain. Not sure what happened but the 10 ghz
tower-mounted xvtr never worked again. That really put a damper on things,
knowing the large impact the loss of the band would have on my score.
Fortunately the activity and then the AU to overcome the Sunday afternoon
doldrums made for a fun and successful contest anyway. After the 3rd time the
circuit breaker blew I wisened up and ran a separate line for the AC.....
- I found much of the AU to be a fairly frustrating experience.Initially the Au
was mostly relatively local stations. Most came in with the Ant's either N or
NNE. But the more interesting stuff (as is typical) was coming in with the beam
to the NW. But I found I wasn't getting answers to my cq's with the antennas NW.
Do you stay NNE and work relatively local stuff or NW for new grids? For a long
time I felt like I was dx'ing instead of contesting - just finding new mult's as
no one was answering my cq's. Starting about 2230z the Au seemed to start
peaking more to the NW and my results improved considerably. Around 2315 the Au
was peaking WNW which is when the best DX is usually worked from my QTH. Sure
enough that's when the longer haul stuff was found this time.
-We probably lucked out with the wx as there was a threat of thunderstorms all
weekend. I did have to shut down for about 15 minutes during the second hour of
the contest when a storm came through but after that it was just very hot and
humid. The AC kept it tolerable in the shack though the hot air from the amps
(and op) gave it a run for the money!
Tnx for all the Q's and Cu next time. 2006 is gonna be the year for 6M E-skip!
Jeff K1TEO
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