ARRL June VHF QSO Party
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EN41vr IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 635 196
2: 138 55
222: 42 27
432: 74 38
903: 14 12
1.2: 19 15
2.3: 4 4
3.4: 3 3
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 929 342 Total Score = 387,144
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Got it all fixed from the big January meltdown. Well almost. Missed a lot of
good 6M openings doing it all it too. I have one 222 antenna I cut out of the
stack that reflects back whatever power is transmitted and 902/3 is still a
little deaf, but all in all the station is QRV again on 8 bands. Even better,
it remained so for the duration of the contest. There was lot of activity here
this weekend, unfortunately not all of it was on the bands. Saturday dawned
with thunderstorms that rocked the house. Warming up the station I noticed the
east fixed 6M antenna had a 2:1 SWR and an intermittent connector. A quick
assessment revealed that I had inadvertently used a piece of 9913 water hose,
disguised as a third party brand. An ohm meter revealed that it had lived up
to its reputation and was wet inside. Thought Iâ??d pitched all that years
ago. Luckily there was a break in the rain before the contest and I got that
changed out in time.
Jut in time to be hit with the daddy of the earlier thunderstorm just as the
contest was starting. Besides the lightning crashes, the precipitation static
out here in wide open farm country is just amazing, often lighting up the S
meter with 20 over 9 hash. The main antennas were all but useless for the
first two hours. Itâ??s been known to blow up preamps here before so I
unplugged everything except the low 6M antennas that were below the trees. It
would not be the last time I had to do this during this contest either. I have
a 5 el on a 20 foot pushup pole with a TV rotor and two fixed antennas, one on
FL and the other on the East coast. With 6M open to the NE, FL and to the SW, I
managed to log Qs between the static crashes for almost two hours on these
antennas. But without the big antennas it was impossible to hold a frequency
for long and Iâ??m sure I lost out on quite a bit being forced to hunt and
peck. The lighting crashes make for lots of repeats! That was a recurring
theme all contest as the storms would slowly approach and recede.
When it cleared the first big Es wave had pretty much died down so I went to
2M, found some rovers and ran some bands. The next wave of Es came soon but it
was to less populated areas in the SW and W. As the pickins would die off, I
went back to 2M and ran the bbnads with several stations. The next wave of
thunderstorms werenâ??t as strong and only put me off the air for a half hour.
6M remained open to various places off an on the rest of the day on into the
night and I kept chipping away at it, going back to 2M and above when things
would dry up. Worked some Caribbean and even found a small 2m Es opening to
FL. Except for the first hour I never had another NE opening to really drive
up the rate and put the bigger numbers in the log.
Made all of my WSJT skeds. I didnâ??t get as many requests this year and
several of my emails went unanswered, even from stations that had contacted me
for a sked! I did manage several randoms for new grids who I also QSYed to 2M,
so it was worth staying up the extra two hours after the activity died off. I
was still hearing Es well into the night, but mostly heard stuff Iâ??d already
worked and my CQs largely went unanswered. I got 3 hours sleep and was back at
it early, but it was foggy and the bands all seemed really depressed. 432 was
a chore and anything above was all but impossible to any distance.
6M started opening to the SW and stayed open off and on for most of the
morning. Pretty much the same stuff to the SE and the SW, and runs would peter
out quickly. Openings to FL and TX arenâ??t all that productive after the
initial rush, there only so many stations to work. By 12 noon 6M was starting
to surge again just as next wave of thunderstorms Iâ??d been hearing crackle
all morning finally descended on me and put me completely off the air for
almost two hours again. This was the kind of storm that signaled its approach
by a steady 10 over buzz on every antenna that began even before the rain
static hit. It was the granddaddy of the ones from the previous day! It just
opened up and poured down rain! I had to just give it up for a while until the
rain quit, and sat on the porch with good cigar waiting it out. When I got back
it was slow going and a lot of locals called me on 6 to QSY to the other bands.
N2KMA told me the DSL Internet was out, so I checked it and quickly determined
that it was the incoming line that was dead, killed by the last big storm. I
then made a dumb mistake and told her to handle it. Little did I know that she
would actually reach somebody in â??Tech Supportâ?? on Sunday! Here she was
handing me the phone in the middle of a rover run with 6M just starting to open
to the NE for the first time since Saturday! The idiot on the other end was
about the slowest SOB you could ever imagine and I had to tell him at least
three times I had already rebooted the cussed router and checked that the
stinking wires were plugged in! Either that or my adrenalin was cranking,
itching to grab a spot to CQ before the band filled up. After what seemed like
an hour of trying to deal with him, I was amazed that I found a hole around
50.130 and proceeded to have my only 100+ QSO hour of the contest! But it
changed back to the SW and the SE way too soon.
After that it was just keep grinding out Qs until the end. The bands seemed
enhanced to the east for the last two hours, but I found too few stations with
bands over 432 to take advantage of it. Iâ??m happy that I was able to better
my 2008 score, but given less weather delays Iâ??m sure it would have been well
over 400K considering how good 6M conditions were.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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