CQ Worldwide VHF Contest
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: DN09
Operating Time (hrs): 3.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 2 1
2: 1 1
-------------------
Total: 3 2 Total Score = 12
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Comments:
Not much doing in WAE so thought I would finish this and get it out.
DN09 DN09 VE7FO VE7FO TEST
So, after all the encouragement from the VHF reflectors, did he actually make it
up the mountain without forgetting anything and hand out some DN09 Q's?
My elmer, VE7IN, (I used to be his) keeps saying, "You always want to make it so
complicated! You don't need a rotor for a beam that's only 10 ft off the
ground!" So, I agree with him (it's his IC706 I'm using) and take the rotor
anyway. As you will see later, I'm really glad I did.
Others also recommended simplicity unless I could be really well organized. I
didn't pay much attention to this as I consider "well-organized" to be a minor
subset of my normal obsessive-compulsive anal behaviour. (My check list took 5
8.5x11 pages.)
I am grateful to those who pointed out that using the vehicle battery could lead
to an expensive jump start charge (when you're a mile above the valley floor
services do start to get expensive) and to those who suggested that, for a first
time effort, computer logging may not be adviseable. (Hah! What do they know?
How am I going to track dupes at 100 Qs/hr without a computer?) As you will
see, use of the laptop probably tripled my score if not more.
I did pay attention to those who suggested that my estimated start time of 9-10
am local on Sun. might be a little late for any Es so set a target of 0700 local
(1400Z) start.
So, based on all the advice and my decisions to ignore some of it, I borrowed a
laptop from our Field Day chairman (VE7CX), one of the ones we used on Field
Day, which was convenient as TRLog was already installed on it, as well as a
backup laptop from a long-standing buddy. I also borrowed a deep-cycle UPS
battery from the same FD chairman (thanks Fred) and borrowed another regular car
battery for backup from the guys who keep my car running. I made up an 11 ft
tube with end caps from 4-1/2" or so plastic drain pipe, loosened the DB62 beam
element to boom clamps, slid all the elements off the boom, stuffed them and the
two halves of the boom into the tube, fastened the end caps with screws and tied
it to the roof racks on the car along with the 10 ft mast and a step ladder for
supporting the mast while I slide the beam onto it. Threw all the tools into a
5 gal bucket, put the bucket, the AlfaSPID rotor with stub mast, rotor
controller, rotor cable, patio umbrella base for the bottom end of the mast,
batteries, laptops, great circle charts showing grids as viewed from DN09ec and
the regular holiday gear. Did I mention that this is our annual vacation week
we spend at the lake in the mountains? Because of all the ham gear there was no
room left for certain things such as the blender usually used for making
fresh-off-the-tree peach Daquiris. If you're going to compete at the higher
levels sacrifices have to be made.
When we arrived at the lakeside motel on Saturday afternoon, the owner, always
dubious about my latest enthusiasm, enquired as to how a step ladder fit into my
vacation plans. As always, ten minutes later with the explanation not yet
complete, he was sorry he had asked. (Last year he was concerned about the 3.5"
dia Maksutov telescope that was aimed down the beach looking, presumably, at
carelessly covered pulchitrudity. I invited him to have a look, an invitation
he nervously accepted. To his great disappointment he found himself looking at
my grandchildren having fun on a slide a mile down the beach.)
Sunday, 0430 local, dragged myself out of bed. Lack of the aforementioned
blender made this easier than it might have been. On the road to the mountain
at 0530. Arrive at the top at 0630. Was glad I'd brought my windbreaker.
Although typical afternoon temperatures at the valley floor are 35-40 deg C
(94-104 deg F) it was cold and windy at the top. Start pulling the beam/boom
out of the tube. Hmmm.... When I put all that stuff in there each of the 10
elements had the boom to element clamps attached. i.e. I had loosened the
hardware sufficiently to slide both halves of each element, still attached to
the boom/element clamp, off the boom. Now, after a vertical mile of washboard
road, I had a bunch of individual half-elements, a whole lot of 2-piece clamps
which had separated, and 20-30 machine screws, lock washers and nuts, all
scattered over the 12 ft length of the tube. Not exactly what I had in mind.
Being a night owl, I don't move that quickly in the morning, especially during
those hours I didn't realize were part of morning. I always thought they were
just add-ons to late night contesting/DX hunting. Took me 3 hours to get
everything set up so it's now 0930 local. Kinda nice to have a rotor that runs
off 12V. Anyway, everything's functioning and I confidently call CQ on 144.2
SSB with the beam pointing at Vancouver/Seattle. Called a few more times.
Nothing. Tried CW on the same freq. Nothing. Tuned around a bit. No SSB
heard. No CW heard. Hmm... Well, the 706 MkII is only 10 W on 2, let's head
for the big time stuff on 6 with 100W. Call CQ on 50.125 SSB wondering how well
I'll be able to manage the pileup. Not a problem. Not a single answer. Try
CQing a little more. Nothing. Try CW. "DN09 DN09 VE7FO VE7FO NST". Why
NST? Well, TEST is a whole dit space longer and every contester knows you can't
waste time sending spaces that don't convey any information. It could easily
cost you several Qs/hr. Still no answer. Do it some more. Still no answer.
Tune around a bit on 6 to see what I can hear. Nothing. Hmm....
Got out my list of local repeaters and requested a signal check. Got a
response. Made me very, very happy to know that there was someone else alive
out there. Had him give me a long count while I turned the beam. Yep, there is
a pattern so guess it's working. Thanks Vern.
Here's where the benefits of the laptop and rotor start showing up. Set TRLog
to Auto CQ with a listening time of 2 seconds until the next CQ. Fall asleep
listening to perfect 23 wpm CW. Wake up... it's still going, but no fish on the
line. Couldn't do that without the laptop. Amuse myself for an hour or so by
checking that the rotor display of degrees with respect to True North is correct
(Tower Talkians will know that there are many ways of determining True North,
some involving owls and wasps) and just generally enjoy pointing it this way and
that with my new and quiet rotor. At least an hour of pleasure I wouldn't have
had without the rotor. Got tired of that and found something else exciting to
do. Eat lunch. Think of packing up but remember many contests when the
decision to stay in the chair paid off. Got serious, pointed the beam due N,
called CQ (6m CW) a half dozen times, moved the beam 15 deg CCW and repeated.
At around 270 deg or so I heard an unfamiliar sound! Someone is sending my
call! It's VE7DXG in CN88! I work him crisply with us doing the standard
exchange followed by TU VE7FO TEST. This seemed to me to be a rather abrupt way
of dealing with the only other person alive on the planet but hey, that's
contesting. Fortunately, he wasn't dismissed that easily and suggested we QSY
to 2. The freq he suggested was right on one of the buzzes from the inverter
running the laptop but I did hear him and we did the ESP thing. Wow! A short
term (90 sec) rate of 90 Qs/hr! If I can maintain this I'm going to really
clean up. Well, that's how it should have been, but there were 7 minutes
between Qs.
Encouraged, I auto-CQ some more. 15 min later I hear someone call a VE4. This
706 doesn't have a cw filter, otherwise I wouldn't have heard this. I move up
to where this is happening and hear VE7SL attempting, successfully, to work the
VE4. I turn the beam to VE4. Nothing. Oh well, I happen to know that SL has a
noise problem. Whenever a prop driven aircraft flies through the pattern of his
6m beam, he hears ignition noise. Other than that, nothing. When they are
finished I dump my call. Nothing. Maybe Steve thought I was calling the VE4.
Back to auto-CQ on the calling frequency. After a while Steve calls me. We
make the Q. A while later VE7DXG calls me again and suggests we try SSB. He
wanted to tell me something and had made an accurate assessment of my cw
capability outside the contest box. We established SSB contact and he told me
that there were a bunch of guys who wanted to work me. Bring 'em on, I say. He
makes a couple of calls and, lo and behold, there are 3 or 4 SSB W7s on the
frequency. He tells them I'm QRV and they ask my QRG. He tells them I've been
CQing on CW right on the calling frequency for the last half hour. In the
meantime I turn the beam on them and call. They go back to DXG sounding rather
bored and say they didn't and don't hear anything. Come on guys, this is DN09
and I'm trying for that DXpedition feeling! Given that response, there's
nothing else to do but CQ in their face. That'll fix 'em.
Auto-CQ until the end and pack everything up, thinking that I made a mistake in
the ham gear/blender trade off and vowing that I'll never do this again. I
attribute the 3 Qs I made to the use of the laptop for auto-CQ and the rotor for
making it easy to turn the beam in 15 degree increments.
While taking down I realize that I had actually set up in a little bit of a
hollow. Not much of one but my beam was only 10 ft. high. I found I could
drive along the ridge to another location with a couple of towers on it where,
had I set up there, I would have been sitting on a localized dome maybe 100 ft
higher with nothing in the way in the foreground. Hmm..., maybe next year.
A couple of days later, I consulted a topo map with back/forestry roads and
found something called Mt. Baldy which is 1400 ft higher than Mt. Kobau.
Through various subterfuges and inducements which will not be described here, I
convinced my XYL that we should drive 75 miles East for lunch and, on the way
back, explore a famous ski hill. When we got to the bottom of the ski lift, I
looked heavenwards and saw the New Jerusalem. A large, bald dome at 7500 ft,
bald save a couple of towers. Where there are towers, there are roads. "Hey,
the view should be really good from up there." This is where I ran out of
Brownie points so didn't get up there. Don't know if there is public access but
looked like a killer QTH. Will I be there next year? If the test dates
coincide with our vacation week, maybe. Don't know what I'll do for an antenna
as the DB62 is going up on my tower in a couple of weeks and will be a real
hassle to take down again.
I had to give the 706 back to VE7IN. He won it a while back at the Pacific
Northwest DX Convention. The next one is Aug 2-4 in Portland and I'm going to
be there. The raffle prize is an HRO $US1000 gift certificate. I have already
figured out that, if I win it, I'll get an FT847 so I can do this VHF stuff a
little better. Now, if I've got an 847, it wouldn't be too hard to justify, on
a percentage basis, another beam, especially for operation on Mt. Baldy. Maybe
I'll buy my first tent. I guess a little generator wouldn't hurt either.
I'm back from the convention. There were 4 VE7s there. They drew the raffle
ticket. V......E......7......O......N. Damn. So, VHF contesting may be in my
future but don't look for me any time soon. Well......, maybe someone can
suggest a transverter solution whereby I could make use of my 1000MP MkV. I
will have the DB62 mounted above the about to arrive Force 12 C4SXL and it would
be nice to be able to plug the coax into something.
Bottom line? It was an experience. Not a good one but a learning one. A
surprisingly large number of people (12) came by while I was up there. They
asked me what I was doing. I said, "I'm involved in a Ham Radio emergency
preparedness exercise along with others all over the world. This is a test of
my ability to, all on my own, set up a station in the field independent of
commercial power supplies and then communicate effectively with others doing the
same thing." I know, that sounds like Field Day, not CQ WW VHF but you have to
tailor the message to the recipient.
Would I do it again? The ham in me, while suppressing the "Not bloody likely"
statement from the practical side of me wants to do it again. Don't know if I
will or not but next year not too likely from mountaintops.
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and advice.
73 de Jim Smith VE7FO
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