ARRL September VHF Contest - 2023
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: Single Op-All Modes LP
QTH: EN41vr IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 202 94
2: 120 57
222: 38 21
432: 51 26
903: 9 5
1.2: 23 13
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 443 216 Total Score = 128,736
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
In the two weeks before the contest we in IL had some of the best tropospheric
ducting propagation I’ve ever seen for day after day variably reaching from
the front range of the Rockies all the way to Maine and from southern Canada to
FL and to a lesser extent Texas. I worked 432 contacts to CO and WY, FL and ME,
even 1296 to CT! Ofcourse by the contest that temperature inversion area had
shrunk considerably with some enhancement mostly to the east. I found myself to
be on the western fringe of it and while it helped my grid total it didn’t
really seem to make my QSO total much higher. It rained Sunday and petty much
killed off even that. Apparently, it really helped stations who were better
positioned like KO9A who is 100 miles east and posted a record score for SO3B.
During that big tropo I found out my 902 was really hurting and my tower preamp
would not engage. Probably water in the coax. My 2304 and 3400 are still
offline for tower issues. Unlike days of yore when I would climb the tower to
fix stuff even in the middle of a contest. I don’t have that option just yet
with my current physical condition. I’m still working on that but after 70 it
gets a lot harder to bounce back from literally breaking my back. So I didn’t
go to 902 at all until Sunday when I was able to hear and work K9CT who is
usually really loud here, but it was just barely copyable on either end. So
since W9FZ-KA9VVY/R was relatively close we tried and were successful in 4 grids
for a 6 band sweep since they were at the grid corner. They were right at the
noise level on 902 CW and SSB copy on 1296.
A new issue reared its ugly head. I have what looks similar to a switching
computer power supply on 2M with a cliff like peak wandering rapidly back and
forth from 144190 to about 144220. At first I suspected it was in my house but
it peaks at about 195 degrees AZ. It raises my noise floor 30db on the scope on
the bottom edge and looks like a sawtooth wave that gradually trails off well
above 144350. During the contest it came in the early afternoon and stayed on
until well after dark! I was severely challenged to hear anyone on the SSB
call frequency depending on where I pointed and if my antennas could null it
out. Luckily it never affected 144.174. I actually got in my Jeep Saturday
afternoon and ran over to the closest neighbor a half mile away roughly in that
direction (180 deg) with my RF hunting rig, but it wasn’t there. Google Earth
shows me another neighbor about 0.8 miles away that might be the culprit but man
that’s a really strong signal for so far away! More investigation is
required.
With conditions were essentially flat for me I kept seeing big gun signals to
east on 6M FT8 trying to make it but fading up and down after a few decodes. I
was able to luck out with a few but after seeing K1TEO pretty often Saturday was
never able to his attention with low power. No matter we worked in consecutive
sequences later on our 6M Ms sked and in less than 10 minutes on 2M. Ms was
really good Saturday night and I was amazed I could not hear W5ZN on 2M –
until Joel somehow realized I had goofed up my sequence and then it went 1-2-3
like usual. Boy was I embarrassed when he told me that on PJ! Sunday morning
was good on 6 but not so much on 2M.
I kept seeing W3SO FN00 on 2M FT8 for several minutes at a time both days but
could not get to them either. W3XTT FN01 was easy. I think a lot of stations
to my east that could have been worked were pointing east to take advantage of
the APRS map “blob” conditions. Little bubbles of 6M Es came and went but
nothing hung around all day Saturday and Sunday, finally bursting loud out to 5
land just after dark but sadly few were on 6M SSB to take full advantage of it.
Once again I may have been just on the edge of the footprint. I had a brief
maybe 10 minute burst to the NE and worked AF1T and some others but it was not
well populated and they all seemed surprised about it. Thanks to W9FZ/R,
KA9VVQ/R, KC0P/R, N9HZ0/R and KG9OV/R for all the points and grids!
73 de K2DRH
Contest: ARRLVHFSEP
Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd Pt/Q
50 CW 5 5 2 1.0
50 FT8 136 136 61 1.0
50 MSK1 23 23 21 1.0
50 USB 38 38 10 1.0
144 FT8 88 88 43 1.0
144 MSK1 4 4 4 1.0
144 USB 28 28 10 1.0
222 FT8 11 22 8 2.0
222 USB 27 54 13 2.0
420 CW 3 6 0 2.0
420 FT8 22 44 16 2.0
420 USB 26 52 10 2.0
902 CW 9 27 5 3.0
1240 CW 10 30 7 3.0
1240 USB 13 39 6 3.0
Total Both 443 596 216 1.3
Score: 128,736
1 Mult = 2.1 Q's
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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