Way to go, Dave!
That is an impressive score and you beat me by about a factor of ten
this time around. I did not operate on 50 MHz. My shack is still in
flux and I need to figure out how to interface the50 MHz station into a
single op setup. I just do not have the room to do it. I was on 144,
222, and 432 only. That suited my capabilities as I just cannot do what
I used to do. You are to be congratulated on your efforts on the higher
bands. Big signals on all those bands is not a trivial pursuit and you
have succeeded very capably. The Northeast has a distinct advantage. I
used to live up the road from K1TEO's CT QTH. There, my brother and I
took turns winning the single op category by fortune of having all that
activity near us. Moving to Maine sure was an eye opener. It is just
far enough away from the action to make it almost impossible to compete.
My solution was insane antenna systems in an effort to overcome the
distances involved. That can work only up to a point. You are a bit
farther away from the activity than I am.
It would be interesting to see what grids you worked on bands above 50
MHz. My hope is to foster activity in those rare spots with no activity,
but it is a hard sell today for sure. N2CEI has been pushing VHF
activity in EM80, and has assembled a great station at the local club.
No one there ever seems to use the gear. He is thinking of removing it
and using it at his place. I have a portable EME system here on 432 and
23cm, but cannot even get anyone to operate it. The system works great
and all one has to do is turn it on. The local club has had almost no
interest. It sits idle most of the time. Not sure if it is too
technical, or maybe something else, but generating interest on our
higher bands is an uphill battle.
Keep up the good work and I will look for you on Tuesday nights!
Dave K1WHS
On 6/16/2025 3:38 PM, K3SK@buckwalter.co wrote:
Like they say LOCATION-LOCATION-LOCATION.
If you want to place in the Top 10 nation-wide in a VHF contest, you
have to live in the NorthEast. Although this was a decent contest
and I hit my all-time highest score ever in 45 years of VHF
contesting, I'm sure by the rummers I've heard, the multi-band guys in
New England cleaned up again. Out here in the boonies of
south-central Virginia working nearly 30 QSOs on 222 & 432 is
monumental. However, it doesn't help much against stations that
are located 100 to 200 miles from 3 to 4 times as many on those same
bands. Not to mention all the close-in 1296 and up stations in those
over-populated home-owner association run neighborhoods of the NE.
Even with my first ever 6-digit score, it would have been much
better had there been any enhanced propagation on the 2m and up bands.
Sporadic E propagation on 6 meters was great most of the contest, with
a European opening in the beginning hours.
Band QSO Grid
50M 265 156
144M 102 36
222M 28 17
432M 28 18
1.2G 3 3
Total 426 230
Score: 112,240
de K3SK
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