CQ Worldwide VHF Contest - 2021
Call: N8RA
Operator(s): N8RA
Station: N8RA
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: FN31
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 228 106
2: 49 24
-------------------
Total: 277 130 Total Score = 42,380
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
The June ARRL VHF contest had been a bust here. I was looking forward to this
weekend’s CQWW VHF contest after my crippling line noise appeared to have now
been eliminated, there were no major weekend commitments, and the station
equipment and operator were in good repair. 6M had been exploding for weeks with
E’s every day and lots of activity on all modes.
I managed to spend 14 hours of chair time and had a blast. Started the contest a
bit late and 6M E’s were present in full force. CQing on SSB, 52 Qs and 35
mults were logged in my first 45 minutes. But the E’s were spotty. Most sigs
were strong but came and went quickly. Some minutes I was working 3-4 per minute
and then there would be nothing for quite a while One K9 station commented that
I was the only station he could hear on the band. Patches of thunderstorms
moving through the area were causing steady S3 QRN with peaks to S8 every few
seconds making it impossible to hear the weak ones, and often requiring many
fills on the strong ones.
After 10 minutes of no more answers on USB, I moved to dueling FT8 on 6M and 2M.
This got a little crazy when the two bands got out of sync and I had to
terminate one or the other to stop transmitting simultaneously. Sorry if your Q
was aborted.
When signal strengths on 6M got strong again, I’d go back to dueling SSB CQs
on 6 and 2 and usually picked up another dozen Qs before that ran out; then back
to FT8. I tried FT4 a few times and it made the QSO fast and efficient, but very
few statins ever came there. Odd.
Europe was in abundance, but not for me. I kept one 6M antenna northeast but
only occasionally saw a very weak single decode of a European. A look at DX maps
showed the European paths all going overhead and landing in the midwest and
south, but not here. Oh well.
During the last few hours on Sunday the 6M E’s became weak and few and the
contest became a tropo event. Many surrounding grid multipliers were now worked
as ops moved their antennas to hunt in other directions. The start of the last
hour was very slow and I considered quitting. But by hanging in there, another
17 stations and 5 multipliers were worked, again proving it pays to keep BIC to
the end. Quite an interesting weekend.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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