I had to climb tower and make a quick fix to the rotor and mast mount .
Hopefully will be able to fully repair it in the spring by replacing mast.
For now it is fine . Operated about 18 hours of the contest for a total of
77 contacts on 50, 144, 432, 1296 bands. Propagation and noise on bands was
an issue here. Looking forward to the next contest in June. Thank you to
all those that I made contact with. Operating from a valley does make it
challenging at times as does a height restriction with nearby airfield. In
all it was fun.
On Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 12:24 p.m. <vhfcontesting-request@contesting.com>
wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Taken out of the contest by ICE. (K3SK@buckwalter.co)
> 2. Re: Taken out of the contest by ICE. (Ron Klimas WZ1V)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:39:53 -0500
> From: <K3SK@buckwalter.co>
> To: "'VHF Contesting'" <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Taken out of the contest by ICE.
> Message-ID: <07c501dc88cb$5e6ef1a0$1b4cd4e0$@buckwalter.co>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Mother nature?s ice, not the government organization. ?
>
>
>
> I have been VHF contesting for over 40 years and until today I have never
> been taken out of the competition during a contest by weather. For several
> years I did the January VHF contest on a Pennsylvania mountain top where
> the cold froze the rotors to where they wouldn't turn and I climbed the
> tower and knocked the ice off with a hammer so we could keep contesting (I
> was young and "less smart" back then). Today, with about 7 hours of contest
> remaining, the winter storm coming up the east coast went from rain to
> sleet, to ice, then snow. This pretty much killed any propagation
> enhancement. I also quickly found out it instantly made my antennas
> inoperative, ALL OF THEM!
>
> The first indicator was the 2m PA tripped with high SWR indicator, then
> almost at the same time the 6m amp did the same. Within 15 minutes I was
> down on all 5 bands I was operating.
>
> When I decided it was time to give up 3 of the 5 PAs tripped off when the
> TX was keyed. Below is the measured SWR for each band. These are all
> normally 1.2 or better.
>
> 50 MHz 3:1
> 144 MHz 2.6:1
> 222 MHz 3.5:1
> 432 MHz 2.5:1
> 1296MHz 2.1:1
>
> Sadly, I was on a roll to a new personal all-time January contest high
> score with 275 QSOs when I was forced out of the game. The only thing
> positive is my score this year is ~7k points over last January contest
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dave ? K3SK
>
> FM07
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:19:54 -0500
> From: "Ron Klimas WZ1V" <wz1v@sbcglobal.net>
> To: K3SK@buckwalter.co, "'VHF Contesting'"
> <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Taken out of the contest by ICE.
> Message-ID: <20260119.011954.929.1@RON>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> Same here Dave, SWR went sky high all bands,
> had to throw in the towel, Better luck next time I hope.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David R Buckwalter via VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
> To: "'VHF Contesting'" <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:39:53 -0500
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Taken out of the contest by ICE.
>
> > Mother nature?s ice, not the government organization. ??
>
>
>
> I have been VHF contesting for over 40 years and until today I have never
> been taken out of the competition during a contest by weather. For several
> years I did the January VHF contest on a Pennsylvania mountain top where
> the cold froze the rotors to where they wouldn't turn and I climbed the
> tower and knocked the ice off with a hammer so we could keep contesting (I
> was young and "less smart" back then). Today, with about 7 hours of contest
> remaining, the winter storm coming up the east coast went from rain to
> sleet, to ice, then snow. This pretty much killed any propagation
> enhancement. I also quickly found out it instantly made my antennas
> inoperative, ALL OF THEM!
>
> The first indicator was the 2m PA tripped with high SWR indicator, then
> almost at the same time the 6m amp did the same. Within 15 minutes I was
> down on all 5 bands I was operating.
>
> When I decided it was time to give up 3 of the 5 PAs tripped off when the
> TX was keyed. Below is the measured SWR for each band. These are all
> normally 1.2 or better.
>
> 50 MHz 3:1
> 144 MHz 2.6:1
> 222 MHz 3.5:1
> 432 MHz 2.5:1
> 1296MHz 2.1:1
>
> Sadly, I was on a roll to a new personal all-time January contest high
> score with 275 QSOs when I was forced out of the game. The only thing
> positive is my score this year is ~7k points over last January contest
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dave ? K3SK
>
> FM07
>
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> VHFcontesting@contesting.com
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>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of VHFcontesting Digest, Vol 277, Issue 16
> **********************************************
>
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