ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EN41vr IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 126 56
2: 90 41
222: 35 26
432: 56 27
903: 7 6
1.2: 14 12
2.3: 1 1
3.4: 1 1
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 330 170 Total Score = 84,660
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
This was about the worst conditions I have ever seen for a January VHF contest.
While it was very warm the winds were howling at 30 to 50 MHPH all day Saturday
and every power line insulator for miles around was buzzing like mad. The
rovers stayed home in droves and I only heard and worked one rover the whole
weekend. Never heard noise that bad during a contest before either. Turning
the tower was difficult and it would stall out often due to the huge wind
pressure on the antennas. Stalling like that causes the DC motor brushes to
arc and carbon up, a situation that I would have to deal with on Sunday. Every
QSO was a struggle and I would sometimes CQ for 45 minutes without an answer.
When I did attempt a band run signals fell off a cliff when we reached 432.
902/3 has become so bad with noise it was all but impossible to hear anyone
through the junk. We had a very light Es opening around 0200-0300Z that I was
right on the fringe of and I managed to work a few stations mostly around EL09.
I must have been loud someplace out in the Gulf since my CQs went mostly
unanswered and there were very few stations to hunt and peck. WSJT skeds went
OK but calling CQ only produced one extra Q. When I finally went down for a few
hours sleep at 1AM there were less than 100 Qs in the log. It was also about
50 degrees colder.
Sunday morning was in the single digits and still 30MPH breezy. There was
pretty much nobody around to work even on random WSJT. More folks got on as
the morning winds calmed down and it warmed up a bit, but by noon my rotor quit
working. Had to take an hour and half off to get the rotor working again but
after that the QSOs were finally going in the log. The nose abated somewhat
but I still had to run the blanker all the time. Conditions finally improved
to *normal January* by the evening and everything was going pretty well until
6M opened up again to FL for most of the stations to my east and north. Once
again I was on the fringe of it and getting mostly north FL coastal grids and
points east out in the Atlantic Ocean. I knew I was in trouble when I
couldnâ??t break the pileup to N3LL and all the louder he got was maybe S-5.
Calls on 2M fell on mostly deaf ears as stations tried to work ES instead. All
in I had to work really hard for the worst score Iâ??ve seen in many years.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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