June VHF contest score: N6MU + N6NB

[WOVERBECK at ccvax.fullerton.edu]

Here's a score from the June VHF Contest:

N6MU + N6NB (@N6NB) - 258,930 - 816 - 270 - ABCDE


Band      QSOs     Grid Squares

 50       537          189

144       155           28

222        37           19

432        68           22

1296       19           12



A few observations:

     At  2230z Sunday, in the middle of a spectacular E-skip 
opening, the  unthinkable happened:   we had a catastrophic 
computer crash.  Our data files were corrupted and could not 
be restored--during the contest, anyway.  We hand-logged the 
remainder of the contest (with no way to check for earlier 
dupes) and ran the whole time; there was no way we could 
search and pounce.  Then we spent 12 post-contest hours on 
a laborious reconstruction of the data files, disk sector 
by sector.  That was more trouble than doing a complex 
federal tax return, and only a little less frustrating.

     This really overshadowed an otherwise good contest, with 
E-skip all day Sunday.  What we did was really a multioperator,
single-transmitter effort (although that category doesn't exist 
in VHF contests).   We made all of three QSOs on any band other 
than six meters during the last 10 hours of the contest because
there were too many QSOs and multipliers to be had on six.
That's too bad, because there was also some E-skip on two.
Maybe it's time to separate the bands and antennas--and think 
multi-multi.

                                        -Wayne, N6NB