ARRL June VHF Contest
Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EM89ps
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 170 84
2:
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 170 84 Total Score = 14,280
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
The ARRL VHF QSO party, June edition, was another event in the year
long ARRL Grid Chase contest. I hoped to make lots of CW and SSB QSOs
to bolster my Grid Chase score, since scoring is the sum of unique
band-mode-grid QSOs per month.
So I operated CW, SSB, and FT8. There was always more activity on FT8
than the other modes, but the rate was faster on phone and CW when
propagation was good. Also, a lot of people didn't seem to mind
duping me on different modes when one of the modes was digital.
People who did not engage the 'NA VHF contest' mode in WSJT-X were
difficult to work. Changing the mode setting during the QSO seemed to
be ineffective. I could force a stuck 'cross mode' QSO to end by
manually selecting the '73' message.
Many times someone would call me, then act as if they could not hear
my response. Many times this behavior was the result of rapid QSB,
but many times signals were quite strong yet the other station acted
as if he could not hear me. On HF, one could attribute this behavior
to QRM local to the caller, but that theory seems inappropriate for
domestic VHF QSOs at the rate the problem occurred.
Between the cross-mode confusion and the infinite retries phenomenon,
I was motivated to upgrade WSJT-X from 1.8 to 1.9 during the contest.
The 'NA VHF contest' checkbox disappeared during the upgrade, so I had
to rely on the automatic detection of 'NA VHF contest' data to switch
modes. I hope I can make the checkbox reappear somehow.
Worked 2 VP9s and heard a 3rd. Bermuda must have been crowded.
Only worked CM, HI, PJ4, VE, VP9, and XE for 'DX'. Best DX was VE7DAY
in CO70. That might be a new grid, too. No Europeans heard.
At the start of the contest the K3 was producing only 40 watts on 6
meters. I ran the 'transmit power calibration' procedure which helped
a little to get 50 watts. I felt weak several times during the
weekend.
I had to take time off both evenings an hour or two before sunset to
mow and do other chores.
I made no attempt to operate 144 or 220 MHz, even though I have
equipment and antennas. Too much nuisance to drag the FT737 out of
the closet.
I used Writelog for CW and SSB logging and WSJT-X logged FT8 QSOs.
After the contest, I imported the WSJT-X ADI file into Writelog which
merely concatenates the 2 logs. I exported the combined logs to
another ADI file, and used a text editor to sort the QSO records by
date and time. Then I imported the sorted ADI file into a new
Writelog log file and now I have a properly ordered log, even though
the sequence numbers are screwy. Why is everything a data processing
problem?
Equipment: K3, P3 and 5 element beam at 66 feet.
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