ARRL June VHF Contest - 2021
Call: NJ8J
Operator(s): NJ8J
Station: NJ8J
Class: SO 3Band LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 11
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 135 62
2: 4 2
222:
432: 1 1
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 140 65 Total Score = 9,165
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Icom IC-7300
TYT TH-8600
Indoor 6M horizontal delta loop
Diamond X-30A at 35'
Logger: N1MM+
First June VHF Contest. Saturday kept me busy, primarily on FT8. Got started
about 45 minutes late, and spent the next 2 hours primarily working local grids.
A little before 2100Z, started to see an opening to FN-land, which then spread
to the midwest, and lasted until about 0130Z. Ended the day with 70Qs, 63 of
them 6M FT8, a couple 6M SSB, and the rest 2M and 70cm FM.
Started back up Sunday about 1400Z, and found another nice, wide-spread opening
to FN, FM, EN, and DM. This lasted until 1615Z, at which point I took a break
for lunch and watching this morning's church service on YouTube. Returned to
the radio about 1930Z and found the band pretty much blah, and spent the
afternoon puttering around the shack (replaced the cable for my straight key,
and put a plug on my foot pedal so I have an alternate to Vox for SSB) while
listening for the band to return to life, which happened about 2130Z, with Qs
with Cuba, Mexico, and, surprisingly enough, Portugal. While I could hear the
band opening to a number of places, actually getting Qs was for some reason like
pulling teeth (compared to Saturday's and Sunday morning's openings). I ended
the day with another 70 Qs, all FT8.
I had hoped to work more on 2M and 70cm FM, but I couldn't hear a whole lot of
activity. I guess not enough Cobb County VHF contesters on there this year.
For an indoor antenna, I was rather pleased with the 6M horizontal delta loop.
It was easy enough to put up (measured out 20 feet of wire, put 2 hooks high up
on an outside wall, threaded the wire through the hooks, connected the two ends
of the wire to shield and center conductor of coax, and pulled the coax to
tighten the loop). Surprisingly, I was able to adjust the spacing of the hooks
to get a pretty flat SWR on the first MHz of 6M, and still within the range of
the IC-7300's tuner in 52-32 Mhz (for FM). Someday I need to drag out the
modelling software to see what the pattern looks like, but it seems to work well
enough.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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