ARRL June VHF QSO Party
Call: W9SZ
Operator(s): W9SZ
Station: W9SZ
Class: Single Op Port QRP
QTH: ILLINOIS
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 66 33
2: 22 13
222: 11 9
432: 13 10
903: 4 4
1.2: 6 6
2.3: 1 1
3.4: 4 4
5.7: 2 2
10G: 2 2
24G:
-------------------
Total: 131 84 Total Score = 16,968
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
I got off to a late start, as seems to happen a lot these days. Got to
the EN50rl hill by noon and got everything set up by 2 pm or so.
Everything seemed to work OK. Band conditions were pretty poor. I
worked K9CT on all bands he had but 1296. It seemed I had some sort of
unknown problem with 1296. Later on I found out that the local
oscillator in the transverter kept going on and off. It got me through
the contest, though. I have been planning for a while on building a
new transverter for that band, anyway.
There was no 6m opening at start of the contest. A short one
materialized on Saturday evening. It seemed to have double-hop Es. I
was hearing (and worked) several stations in the Colorado area. I also
could hear (but not work) quite a few W6's. I guess conditions were
not quite good enough for them to hear my 10 watts, although the 4
element Yagi on a 13 foot boom that I've been using for 50 MHz has
been quite a performer. I did hear T43S and worked them. I also did
manage to work several stations up the higher bands on Saturday.
Sunday morning at 6 am there was still no 6m opening. I worked several
stations on the higher microwave bands. Then at around 9 am an opening
materialized into Texas and the west. I worked an awful lot of DM79
stations! W9RM and W6OAL had the loudest signals on that band. Another
equipment problem appeared for a bit. My 6m transverter got stuck in
transmit mode. I was afraid that was the end of my 6m run but the
problem fixed itself.
After the 6m opening died for me around 2 pm, things got really slow.
I made a handful of QSO's on the higher bands after that. Best DX was
probably with W0UC in EN44. Around 5 pm I briefly heard W5ZN and W4ZRZ
but was unable to work them. I also kept calling N4QWZ but conditions just
weren't good enough to work him this time.
I made one QSO/hour for the last few hours of the contest. I was
waiting for Jim W9SNR to get to a new location in EN52sa so we could
work up the bands. He finally showed up and we worked through 10 GHz
except for 2304, which he had problems with. My marine deep-cycle battery
was starting to get low and I didn't know much time I had left on it. I
went
QRT at 7 pm local time and packed everything up. Just after I got on the
road
home, it started raining. So Murphy mostly spared me this year, even if
conditions were poor.
73, Zack W9SZ
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