Wow! What a fun contest!
This was the first time I had done any contesting on 6 with high
power. I'm not much of a VHF contester really. More of an avid CW
and weak signal operator who is more than happy to take advantage of
contest activity to have some major fun.
I love "running" stations on CW. Since I'm not sought after DX,
contests provide the primary opportunity to do that. I spent as much
time as possible running 'em on CW during the single hop Es
Saturday. I knew I was doomed when shortly after I started my run
the cat vacated the territory! When the shack temperature reached
110 degrees and I was gasping for air like a fish out of water it
was time to reluctantly quit for a while. When this space had cooled
sufficiently to re-enter it, my next move was to install the A/C in
the shack window! It has been so cold this Spring there hadn't been
any need.... until I started running CW with the 4CX1500B in a
small, poorly ventilated space. Whew! Actually I'm very glad I had
occasion to discover this *before* the first big Europe opening of
the Es season! I would have been *seriously* bummed to have to take
a break during one of those!
Sunday morning was typical, a lot of scatter and some marginal Es to
the southeastern states. That was followed by a brief and very
unstable mid-day double hop opening to the west. After that the
bottom dropped out. Tuning the band for several hours the perfect
tranquility of my noise floor would from time to time be ever so
slightly, yet perceptibly disturbed by the faint murmur of northeast
stations running SSB. I managed, albeit with some difficulty, to
recover enough information from some of these noise floor
disturbances to log a few more contacts.
Then it occurred to me I hadn't tried calling CQ on CW under these
conditions. Since for the first time I had high power I figured it
would be worth a try. I had no idea it was going to be so exciting!
The stations who called on tropo (if you can call those stinko
conditions tropo!) were mostly very weak but workable. That was fine
with me since I thoroughly enjoy weak signal CW work. Then I started
getting 3's 8's 9's and VE3's on what I presume to have been
ionospheric forward scatter. Signals were weak to very weak, peaked
on a direct bearing, and exhibited mild to moderate flutter effect.
This usually required repeating calls and grids 3 or 4 times, but
contacts came easily. That was something I hadn't been able to
experience with low to moderate power in the past, and it was great
fun! I hope this is a fairly typical occurrence and not an isolated
event that won't soon repeat.
Two years ago after suffering a case of burnout from spending all my
time repairing stuff rather than operating, and loss of interest due
to shifts in VHF technology and modes, I gave up all bands above 6.
Having sold all the EME stuff to purchase a new rig and do some
antenna work, I've had a chance to decompress and rediscover the fun
and excitement of VHF. As a result I am now working toward getting
back on 2 meters.
My aluminum pile let me down (boom material but nothing to use for
elements), so I found myself with no suitable 2 meter antenna for
this contest. At the last minute I hooked the transverter to the
only thing "in the air" that would at least provide a reasonable
SWR: a 5 element vertically polarized yagi fixed toward the north. I
had doubts about working anyone, but with that and 75 watts I did
put two stations and two grids in the log. I will take that as basic
proof of concept on my recently heavily modified bucket of bolts
Swan transverter.
It isn't clear whether I will get some aluminum up for 2 this summer
or not. At this point I would guess not. With resources low,
building up the 2 meter station will come slowly but I count my
blessings every day. All things considered I am so *VERY* fortunate
to be on the air at all, let alone with the station I have at this
point -- and I know it!
See you next contest! Meanwhile I will be making noise on 6 CW
whenever possible.
73,
Paul N1BUG FN55mf
6m: 1500w, 7 element yagi at 100'
2m: work in progress, 75w, no antenna yet
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