Last year I just stuck to 6 meters on FD. I used a 4 element Yagi on a 13 foot boom. Worked well. We had some openings to the southwest and southeast USA and Caribbean on 6. Never heard anything nort
I'll be QRV on Sunday only from my favorite hill in EN50rl, Single-Op (QRP) Portable. All bands 50 through 24192 MHz. Hopefully some of the 2m Es that's been reported on the east coast will make its
I haven't studied the rules regarding spotting nets that closely because I always operate from hilltops where I have no internet connection and I don't take a computer. But it seems to me that if it'
Here in Illinois, not much. I was in the Hilltopper category and I chose my operating time to be from contest start to 2359Z on Saturday (I didn't quite last that long). There was a promise of an ope
I've found through years of experience as a Single-Op (QRP) Portable that if you are running 10 watts or less, or if you do not have the best antennas, calling CQ in CW will allow you to be heard by
As an additional note, I think 95% of all the QSO's I've made on 2304 MHz and up were on CW. On the lower bands, when working people up the bands, we usually decide to try on SSB first and switch to
You certainly wouldn't be an annoyance! I've worked many people in the August UHF contest who only had 432. I started out that way. And I think most people feel that any QSO's they can get are good,
I imagine the scoring would be like the other VHF contests - the exchange would be grid squares and the mults would be grid squares, unlike the 10 Meter Contest where the mults are states/provinces/D
At about 8:30 local time (0130Z) I heard a station saying he was in FN42. Didn't get a call. I heard him for about 20 seconds. If it was a meteor burn, it was a long one. 73, Zack W9SZ EN50 _________
Call: W9SZ Operator(s): W9SZ Station: W9SZ Class: Single Op QRP QTH: EN50ue Operating Time (hrs): 2.5 Summary: Total: QSOs = 10 Mults = 8 Tot Dist(km) = ? Total Score = 80 Club: Society of Midwest Co
When I started VHF contesting back around 1991 or so, I just had a homebrew box for 144 MHz. I kept building transverters for new bands and now I have a bunch of boxes to haul around for the contests
Looks like I didn't do too badly. Far below my highest score for the June contest in the past, my score placed fourth in the nation for Single-Op (QRP) Portable. Not bad for part of a day of operatio
The 222 MHz transverter design by W1VT that appeared in July 1993 QEX is a high-performance unit. It does require three circuit boards which contain printed hairpin filters. (I made mine myself.) If
I don't think my operating will change in any way. I'll keep doing the Single Op (QRP) Portable until I get too old to do it any more. I'll pack up my car, drive to my favorite hill as long as it's a
In the 432 MHz Fall Sprint in 2012 my car got stuck in the mud. My cell phone battery died with no way to charge it. No other radio than my 432 CW/SSB transverter. So I had to walk six miles back to
As a Single Op Portable I always take all bands through 10 GHz with me. Sometimes 24 GHz if I think there will be a chance of working someone. I always will. I thrive on microwave QSO's. I can genera
That (and any other beacon lists) are about the best you can do. I don't know of a beacon coordinator anywhere. Pick an empty frequency. :-) There are a couple beacons copyable around here (central I
Well, I made what in retrospect was a poor decision. I had a lot of things going on this past weekend and knew I could only operate one day in the contest. I thought I would have about 8 hours on Sun
One good tool is to have an SDR set up to display the beacon sub-band on 6m. I have a VHF Softrock Ensemble unit that I do this with. When the band opens, you see all these little blips in the beacon