John:
Here's a start on some of your questions.....I too started out as an HF
contester but have been spending more time on VHF than HF for many years.
(1) A dipole on 6m will get you some QSOs. It's what I use in my Rover setup.
But as you can imagine, a beam is better !
(2) There is an explanation of antenna spacing on the Directive Systems website:
http://www.directivesystems.com/
Look in the "APP notes" section. Generally speaking, smaller spacings often
work, but you can be confident with the rules provided in that app note.
(3) An omnidirectional antenna will probably only be of help if it has
significant gain (i.e. several stacked halos). A Yagi usually has gain in the
sidelobes about equal to a single halo. The InnovAntennas beam might be
different - they go to a lot of effort to keep the sidelobes down.
(4) One factor reducing your rotor spinning will be that most of your 70 cm
QSOs will probably be done by moving people from 2m, so at least you won't need
to turn the rotor between those QSOs.
(5) There's some very basic pointers (from an Ontario perspective) on the
Contest Club Ontario website at
http://www.va3cco.com/VHFContestPrimer.pdf
And more on KC9BQA'a blog at
http://kc9bqa.com/?p=5931
(6) Most likely you won't really need the Inrad filters unless you have some
very loud locals who like CW. If they are on SSB you will probably have more
problems with their splatter which can not be fixed by IF filtering. The
number of signals you hear at one time is normally much less than on HF and
they are spread out more, with the possible exception of a good Sporadic E
opening on 6m. The stock DSP CW filtering will likely work well enough, at
least to start with.
(7) Regarding the "is this enough power to have fun" question....it really
depends on you. The QSO rate will certainly be much less than Sweepstakes or
CQWW (and would be even if you had a kW, most of the time !) so if rate is your
main turn-on it may not be very much fun. But to me, each QSO with a distant
station on bands which most hams think are only good for local ragchews
provides a bit of challenge which keeps me in the chair.
73,
Steve VE3SMA
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