ARRL June VHF Contest - 2020
Call: K9GY
Operator(s): K9GY
Station: K9GY
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EN61fn (IL)
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 167 76
2:
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 167 76 Total Score = 12,692
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Preparation is the key to success? Well definitely wasn't prepared!
Permanent station here is IC-7300 and Cushcraft R-9. For 6m that means
vertically polarized which can be a disadvantage in a VHF contest. Kind of
struggled a bit between going rover or staying home in the days before the
contest. Plus the weather was so good over the weekend (highs in the upper 60s
to lower 70s) it was a mental struggle to be indoors (and not on a 20 mile
bicycle ride). Decided to be outdoors by spending Saturday (finally!) putting
together a 4L Arrow Antennas yagi (bought at Dayton a few years ago)
http://www.arrowantennas.com/solid/52-4s.html Impressed with it's ease of
assembly! Really only caught a bit of Saturday due to setup and dragging my
feet. Too bad too since I could have made over 250-300 Qs, argh!
Used surplus military poles (metal 4' ea) to support it at 16' and 200' of coax
to the shack. Better than being vertically polarized?! Although manual (me!)
antenna rotation. Seemed like every time I'd guess where the next geographical
opening would be I was wrong so had to turn it again hah! Didn't take long to
turn it...maybe 5 mins. Interesting to see QRN differences between vert/horz
polarization!
Big news is finally got FT8 working between IC-7300/microHam MKII/WSJT-X...
which generated a lot of Qs. Geez it's slow though! I should have tried FT4 but
kinda forgot in all the excitement. Still need to integrate N1MM+ and WSJT-X
though. I tried to upgrade N1MM+ right before the contest (DUH!) but the new
version crashed so defaulted back to WriteLog. Since I wasn't fully integrated I
needed to switch com ports when moving between FT8 and CW+SSB which was a pita!
Maybe RTTY will finally work now that everything is talking to each other now.
Simple setup but gosh lots of issues!
Used the IC-7300 spectrum scope band edges based on mode: 50.0-50.1 CW,
50.1-50.250 SSB, and above 50.250 Digital. That way it acted like a 2nd receiver
in the sense I could operate FT8 and watch the CW (or SSB) portion for activity
and switch when needed. Very helpful... an added tool versus just watching FT8
signal strength.
I need to figure out how to view WSJT-X left screen with just the stations
recently active sorted by CQers and non-CQers. Seems kind of old school to have
to scroll up all the time to see who's CQed recently. Maybe when N1MM+ gets
integrated?
Was using a Heil Pro Set Elite (which hurt my big ears after a while!).
Determined that if I turned my head to the left too much I'd get a bunch of junk
in the audio so maybe the cable has issues or something?! Definitely LOVE my
Radiosport RS20S for my big ears! Some of my audio issues where getting com
ports correctly setup.
All in all it was a lot of FUN! Especially liked the bursts of CW+SSB openings
to make me forget FT8 :-)
Looking forward to CQ VHF in July!
Best of health to all,
Eric K9GY
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