ARRL January VHF Contest - 2020
Station: N8RA
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: CT FN31tl
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 152 34
2: 110 25
222: 14 6
432: 15 6
-------------------
Total: 291 71 Total Score = 22,720
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Looking back, it was a fun weekend. FT8 sure keeps one from getting bored
from operating only SSB, or is it that FT8's popularity is why running
SSB-only got boring? Two thirds of my Q's were FT8.
Since the Sept VHF contest I had retired the shack's old Windows 7 box,
upgraded its main computer to a faster Win 10 one, repaired the fan in the
trusty FAA amp used on 222 MHz, and found the switching intermittent in the
FAA amp used on 432 MHz. A small vertically polarized 6M yagi had been
mounted for use as a noise pickup antenna with an ANC-4 to null line noise
if the utility pole in front of the house acted up again. I thought I was
ready for this weekend.
Wrong!
6M and 2M had not had a problem so I assumed they were OK. But we should
remember what the word assume really means..
So, a half hour before the start, I came down to the shack and turned
everything on. What's this, the Orion does not power on correctly on its
first try in the cold shack? And the 2M radio does not key under computer
control? Yikes! Is it the sequencer, serial port numbering, the USB
interface, the keying circuit? Tore into all these and a half hour later I
found it was the checkmark in the logging software not set to "radio 2".
Argh, I hurriedly put everything back together but got a late start in the
contest. I hate when that happens, and I was not in a good mood. It was
lightly snowing and starting to accumulate. Contacts on 222 and 432 were
weak, their antenna swr's were high, likely from wet snow accumulation on
them, and for a while there was a line noise zapping to the NW, not the
direction the noise antenna was pointed. Fortunately, both those problems
cleared up later in the day as it melted.
VHF conditions initially seemed poor. Mult count was down but steady
contacts were made on SSB and FT8 throughout Saturday and by night I felt
like I had recovered from the poor start. All was not lost.
Got up early (for me) Sunday morning to try for some mults on meteor
scatter, but it seemed this has become the domain of the high-power ops and
I had little success trying to squeak out a contact. It seemed better a few
years ago at my previous QTH, but there the antennas were twice as high, so
maybe that is it.
SSB and FT8 contact rates were again reasonable on Sunday and the mults
started to accumulate. When stronger Es stations were showing up on WSJT, I
switched back to 6M SSB hoping to get a better rate, but made a big goof- I
forgot N1MM+ was set up for dueling CQs and in trying to work only 6M I was
actually alternating with a voice CQ on the 2M WSJT frequency. Very sorry
folks!
After correcting that, I then answered a very strong local CQing, on 6M and
got no response. Huh? Looked at the wattmeter: no power out and the
transceiver was complaining of infinite SWR. So started another
investigation. It was something in the amp, took it apart, but I could not
find anything before the MYL called supper time. 6M was now kaput but a nice
hot meal and glass of wine calmed me down. Being tired I decided it was not
a good idea to try and troubleshoot any further an amp having a 2KV power
supply. Without 6M I felt like totally quitting, I then thought of finishing
the contest without 6M, but then hey, why not just use the 6M radio barefoot
at 60 watts, that is only down about 5dB from 200w. Got another dozen or so
contacts including 4 mults in the closing hours and ended knowing I had
given it a good effort.
FWIW, I looked for FT8 on 222174 a few times but never found any. Anyone
else have better luck here?
73,
Chet, N8RA
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