I remember my first attempt at a VHF contest. I set up a tripod in my
second-floor apartment and put a 144 MHz antenna on it. A 3-el Yagi on a 4
ft boom. I was using a transverter I built myself. It ran somewhere around
10 watts. I think I made three QSO's with it. I think they were all in the
same grid as me.
:-)
73, Zack W9SZ
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bryan Leenheer <bryan.leenheer@gmail.com>wrote:
> Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd
> 144 USB 2 2 2
> Total Both 2 2 2
>
> Score: 4
>
> Single Op, Portable, 1 band.
>
> Rig is an Icom IC-290A. Antenna is a "cheap yagi" sitting on a stepladder
> @
> 6 feet above ground level...
>
> I'm certainly not bragging about my contest results here - 4 points is
> nothing to brag about. But I started in on this contest without knowing
> for
> certain that the IC-290A even worked on SSB, so I'm pretty happy about the
> 2
> contacts I did get. I called CQ Contest for about 5.5 hours on Saturday;
> heard a few more guys out there that I wasn't able to work, and learned a
> lot for next June's contest.
>
> Lesson 1: Don't operate from my QTH. I live in the glacial riverbed of
> the
> Grand River, which has since the Ice Age shifted away to the north. This
> means that just to my north is a ridge, and about 1/2 mile to my south is
> another ridge. A 6 foot mast isn't going to let my signal out any
> direction
> other than to the east northeast, and west southwest - which are where my 2
> contacts were from.
>
> Lesson 2: Work more bands. I'm picking up a 70cm SSB rig in a couple
> weeks
> - a KLM Echo 70cm for $75 - so I'll be able to take that out on a rove in
> the springtime. I'm sure it's not that awesome a rig, but it's cheap. And
> until I've managed to save up for that lovely IC-7000, cheap is the order
> of
> the day...
>
> Lesson 3: Learn CW. I heard several signals in CW, but as I don't know
> enough code to answer, I wasn't able to work them. :(
>
> Lesson 4: Work longer. I didn't get started calling CQ on SSB until
> 3:00PM
> local time because I was trying to play with my TH-D72 for APRS Day Out on
> 147.585 http://www.aprs.org/APRS-day-out.html for the first hour. I heard
> no packets at all for that event; probably because we didn't have any
> rovers
> in hearing distance in Michigan. I played radio until about 8:30PM local
> time, when it was too dark outside to see what I was doing. I wasn't able
> to play radio (for the most part) on Sunday because it was my company
> picnic
> at Michigan's Adventure - and I wasn't going to put my life at risk by not
> taking my 13 year old coaster loving daughter to that. I did set my HT to
> beacon as a rover and listened to the 146.550MHz FM, but I didn't hear
> anyone along my trip.
>
> I worked N9UHF(EN52) and WZ8T(EN72). Both of these were booming in.
>
> Plans for June: Get more radios. I may be able to sweet talk my wife into
> letting me get that IC-7000 for Christmas. I'll be playing with the
> Echo70cm a bit, maybe in the upcoming sprints. I can build another cheap
> yagi for that in an afternoon. Get a portable mast/guying system. There
> are some lovely dune parks just off to my west, and I can literally walk
> from my QTH to the next grid east of me, where there is a nice park with a
> good hilltop to setup a portable rig on. I figure I have decent hills to
> work from for at least 3 grids in my county alone, and EN73 may have some
> hilltops that are public as well, I just need to look.
>
> I'm also interested in what you guys may offer as constructive criticism:
> there isn't a whole lot of VHF activity other than the repeaters in West
> Michigan, so I'm kinda stumbling along blind here...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bryan (KD8LDX)
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
>
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|