ARRL January VHF Contest
Call: KR1ST
Operator(s): KR1ST
Station: KR1ST
Class: SO 3Band LP
QTH: FN21
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 95 18
2: 44 11
222:
432: 16 6
-------------------
Total: 155 35 Total Score = 5,985
Club: Mt Airy VHF Radio Club
Comments:
Rigs: IC-9100
Pwr: 100W on 6 and 2m, 50W on 70cm
Ants: - M2 6M3
- M2 2M9
- M2 432-6WL
Elev: 1900+ ft
Club: Mt Airy VHF Radio Club
I barely broke last year's score, which is a shame because back then I
only had
6 and 2m with smaller omni directional antennas. This is mostly due to
the fact
that Sunday was a complete bust for me. I did fairly well on Saturday
and it was
nice that the first 70 QSO's or so were all on SSB before I moved to
FT8. Then
the snow and ice storm came.
I woke up Sunday early to very high SWR on the 6 and 2m beams due to
ice. I
tamed that with a manual HF tuner on 6m, and a manual VHF tuner on 2m.
The 432
beam showed good SWR, but the N1201SA analyzer told me that it had
pretty much
turned into a 388MHz antenna. I only made a handful of contacts on
Sunday.
Stations that I ordinarily can work quite easily were now often totally
out of
reach. I concluded that my antennas had turned into dummy loads. Later
in the
day the temperatures dropped very quickly and my rotor froze in the SE
direction.
Before the rotor froze it was interesting to observe that the 6m beam's
pattern
had changed drastically. It was mostly omnidirectional, favoring the
rear of the
antenna. I wondered if the feed line was doing the radiating. There were
some
nice enhancements on Sunday late afternoon and evening on 6m, but I
could not
take advantage of that. Very frustrating! On FT8 I could only work
stations with
signals >0dB. That VP9 and KP4 were able to hear me I ascribe to the
magic of
the 6m band.
Even with these set backs it was still a lot of fun! Many thanks to
Phil, K3TUF
for my first ever contest CW QSO. :)
73,
--Alex KR1ST (FN21fk)
Band mode breakdown:
Band Mode QSOs Grd
50 FT8 56 12
50 USB 39 6
144 FT8 16 5
144 USB 28 6
420 CW 1 0
420 USB 15 6
Total Both 155 35
Score: 5,985
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