ARRL June VHF QSO Party
Call: W9SZ
Operator(s): W9SZ
Station: W9SZ
Class: Single Op Port QRP
QTH: Illinois
Operating Time (hrs): 7.0
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 18 14
2: 7 6
222: 6 6
432: 7 7
903: 4 4
1.2: 6 6
2.3: 2 2
3.4: 3 3
5.7: 1 1
10G: 2 2
24G:
-------------------
Total: 56 51 Total Score = 5,763
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Sunday only operation. The wind was my nemesis. It was blowing constantly
in the range of 35 - 45 mph, gusting to maybe more. Since I have
rear-mounted loop Yagis for 902 and 1296, the wind wanted the antennas to
be pointed in the direction the wind was blowing - which was north. I
missed quite a few stations in other directions because I couldn't point my
beams at them. My method of using a vise grip to hold the mast in place
failed because a gust would cause the vise grips to snap open or come loose
from the mast. When I did get the antennas pointed, they would thrash
around as much as 30 degrees or so from where I wanted them. The whole
stack almost blew over several times.
My dish antenna for microwaves blew over a couple times and got a dent in
it. I managed to pound it out with a hammer. I don't think it affected
performance greatly. After that, I had to work the microwave bands with the
rig on the top of the car and holding the dish antenna tripod so it
wouldn't blow over.
Conditions were marginal. I did hear N4QWZ and W5ZN (Sean KX9X op?) on 144
SSB but couldn't get the antennas on them.
At least the rain held off until I started taking everything down. :-)
This is probably the fewest QSO's I've made in this contest in some years.
6 meters did open for a while and I managed to keep the beam to the
southwest and southeast long enough to work some people. Microwave bands
were rather poor. I had 24 GHz along but conditions on 10 GHz weren't good
enough to merit trying that band. I had trouble hearing on 222 which I
traced to the T/R relay and replaced it. Then that was fine.
So overall, not my best contest, but at least I made it.
73, Zack W9SZ
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