CQ Worldwide VHF Contest
Call: K1TEO
Operator(s): K1TEO
Station: K1TEO
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: FN31/CT
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 441 136
2: 170 41
-------------------
Total: 611 177 Total Score = 138,237
Club: North East Weak Signal Group
Comments:
This one started out on a down note as my SWR on the main 6M antenna (5/5 el)was
3:1. I have two lower antennas (both single 5 els)but both of those rotors were
broken during last fall's hurricane and remain unrepaired. As this is primarily
a 6M contest all I could do was hope for some really good openings. Fixing the
antennas was out of the question as the weather was really hot and not
compatible with cranking the tower down and over. It is a long tiring effort
and not something to do Saturday of the contest.
Band condx Saturday afternoon were not all that great. For the first couple of
hours little E-skip was noticed and then just a few EA8's and CT were in . I
could see on the chat pages that others were working a bit more into EU but
either they were not coming in at my QTH or the antenna limitations kept me
from hearing them. Meanwhile 2M had decent activity (hey the antennas were
working normally on that band, hi!)but the APRS propagation map looked like it
does on a really cold day in January - at least in the Eastern half of the
country there was almost no color on the map. You don't see that very often
during the summer months. Generally condx on the band seemed to confirm what
the APRS map indicated though I did work VE3SMA in FN05 with decent signals
which was nice.
During the early evening 6M started to open just a bit. Around 4:15 local time
a few midwest stations were worked starting with N0KE in CO. There were a few
strong signals but not many were worked as the bands was spotty for the next
hour. Then around 7 pm K0HA in EN10 started to come in. He was s5 for awhile,
then built up to s9. For at least 20 minutes he was just about the only E-skip
station on the band that was heard. Talk about a small foot print....Then K5QE
started to come in, followed by NR5M. Not much was on besides these guys who
seem to create their own openings. Very impressive. Around 7:45 the band
finally opened up solidly and stayed that way for 1.5 hours mainly to the SE
with some Midwest stations checking in as well. Over 120 Q's were made during
this time period which was the only high rate period of the contest for me. The
band shut down around 9:45 and then reopened to FL around 11.
I went to sleep on Saturday just before midnight with 428 Q's in the log and
120 grids on 6 meters and 31 on 2M. Sunday turned out to be a really slow day.
Although the APRS map was much better throughout the day, activity on 2M had
basically shut down after the first 3 hours or so of the contest, once 6M
started to open up. Most of the time 2M had only 2 or 3 signals on it until the
last couple of hours when folks seemed to drift back to 2M as 6 had died out for
E-skip. 6 was open to Florida again in the morning and we could hear those
stations running with many areas of the Eastern US. Later there were spotty
openings to the Gulf Coast. Again K5QE and NR5M were in for long periods this
time joined by W5PR who was never loud but in for a few hours. By noon 6M was
back to only local stuff and with my high swr it was tough to work many more as
the loud sigs on the band had already entered the log.
I was a bit surprised to work W8MIL in EN74 on 2M with fairly good signals
Sunday morning. I also had 2 wsjt skeds that went well to add a couple of
grids. And for the first time in my contesting experience I made one
announcement of a wsjt cq on 2M and was rewarded with 2 responses! Overall I
spent 9 hours operating on Saturday and and had the 428 qso's and also operated
about 9 hours on Sunday while making 183 QSO's. 77 of those QSO's were on 2M
which helped the score given the 2 point scoring on the band. Most of the 16
new grids Sunday on 6M were local tropo grids.
Rover activity was good with VE3CRU, K2QO, N2SLN, WB2SIH, and N1KPW entering
the log a number of times. Tnx for your efforts guys! VA3ELE did an amazing job
handing out rare grids in Ontario as he was worked in EN97, FN07 and FN08. Great
job Peter!
One thing I liked about the contest was being able to watch the chat pages and
see the spots during the contest. In some cases it created frustration as you
could see other parts of the country experiencing openings while 6M was closed
much of the time in my area. And, there were quite a few stations on the chat
pages that are easy for me to work and would have been new grids but were never
found on the air. On the other hand it was fun to see what was going on during a
contest, and my one post on ping jockey netted 2 extra QSO's and grids on 2m
which was fun. While I have always been a bit of a purist and not advocated any
assistance at all I would say it was a net positive to be able to look at what
was going on. So, I like the rules for this contest regarding passive use of
assistance.
As noted by others I find it interesting to see so much cw activity on 6M When
I started contesting in the early 1970's most of my contacts on 2M were in the
cw part of the band below 144.100. Once the SSB call frequency moved to 144.200
the cw activity dropped off and nowadays the cw activity is intermingled with
the SSB activity on 2M. I really enjoyed the 6M activity in the suband and wish
something like that could happen again on 2M too.
Tnx for the QSO's and to CQ for sponsoring the contest.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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