[3830] ARRL Jan VHF K2DRH Single Op LP

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                    ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes

Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EN41vr IL
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  140    47
    2:  180    53
  222:   59    33
  432:   93    36
  903:   22    18
  1.2:   30    18
  2.3:    4     4
  3.4:    2     2
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  530   211  Total Score = 185,680

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

This January VHF Sweepstakes seemed harder to prepare for than usual.  While
there was a pleasant lack of the usual antenna problems, there seemed no end to
the stuff that needed to be done inside the shack.  I’ve been using a new rotor
box from Green Heron Engineering that has been modified by W2FU and K0XG to run
my rotating tower.  The controller itself is really excellent and a pleasure to
operate, but my 28VDC motor and chain drive aren’t the usual load for it so we
have been customizing the voltage supply for my more demanding application (I
want my tower to rotate FAST).  With K0XG’s help that was accomplished a week or
two ahead of time and I integrated the controller with the computer so that that
when I typed in a call I could click the mouse and have it rotate right to that
station.

But wouldn’t you know the day before the contest I noticed the rotation speed
had slowed down again.  This time it wasn’t the DC power source.  Increasing S9
arcing noises on 6M told me something was wrong, but a quick climb up the tower
in the vain hope it was a loose connection showed me there was little I could do
about it.  The motor brushes were getting worn and slowing things down. And just
when we’d finally got the speed up where I wanted it, sigh.  I couldn’t rebuild
the motor and replace them in time so I had to run it that way.  A tad harder to
peak up when your own motor gives you S9 impulse noise!  And very frustrating
when it’s slow to turn and catch a new multiplier before somebody else QSY’s
him!  It’s always something!

Before every contest I check all my power levels to ensure I’m operating within
the low power class rules.  Usually this only requires an hour or two of
inserting attenuators between the IF rigs and the transverters on the Tx line
and adjusting the amplifier inputs to the required output levels.  I run the
8877 amps on 6 and 2M with low drive, that way everything runs very
conservatively and very clean.  But on 2M I had all sorts of puzzling output
level shifting problems until I finally discovered a marginal solder job done on
the pin of a pre-made Heliax jumper made by the Heliax manufacturer itself!  It
had worked fine for several years previously, but eventually the solder cracked.
 It still made for a fine connection on receive, but was maddingly inconsistent
on transmit!  I went around and around for hours until I found it!  Goes to show
you that even the experts make bad connections sometimes!  Can’t trust anybody! 


So with everything finally all ready to go the day before the contest all I had
to do was relax, get plenty of sleep the night before and just get on when the
contest started right?  Wrong.  Saturday dawned way too early with the sound of
what N2KMA fondly refers to as “the retching dog alarm clock”.  Both of our dogs
had gotten into something only a dog can find appealing and were, dare I say it,
sick as dogs!  A trip to the vet revealed nothing seriously wrong, but I arrived
back the shack barely in time to start the contest, somewhat rattled and much
less rested than I would have liked! 

The contest started well and kept up good all afternoon.  Locally out to 300
miles or so signals were definitely way better than usual and activity was high.
 Some of the closer in stations were so loud they actually sounded distorted! 
After last year’s marginal conditions it was refreshing to hear so many good
signals.  It didn’t seem to extend out past my normal range however, but it was
a real pleasure to operate since signals were so loud on the lower four bands.  
 But this unusual enhancement didn’t extend up past 432 and many stations I can
usually work on 903 and beyond just  weren’t there on the high bands.  Most band
runs ended abruptly at 432 with a few hitting the wall after a very marginal 903
or 1296 contact.  Had to make lots of skeds for later, only to find out that
later wasn’t much better either!  We had a little treat in that conditions
finally extended further south late on Saturday night, but only after the
stations left to work had already thinned out considerably.  Several grids out
past 400 miles were workable up to 432, but no luck with the higher bands again.
 Tried to complete a 903 contact with Steve AG4V in EM55 for almost a half hour
before finally giving up in frustration   It  would tease us by coming up to the
noise level for a few seconds, then going away again.   I also heard several
needed grids working each other down south that I just couldn’t break into.  One
familiar contest station asked me to standby while they were talking, but then
forgot about me when their QSO was over!  Grrr!

WSJT was great and the rocks were really flying Saturday night.  I made all my
skeds,  most of my “I’ll try and catch you if there’s time at the end before the
next one”  tentative skeds,  plus a few randoms thrown in for good measure.  The
new WSJT 6 program is a dream come true with instant decoding without waiting
for the sequence to be over, and makes working stations a lot faster.   However
it gave me a few bad moments when I came to my sked with Jeff K1TEO and suddenly
realized that it doesn’t support switching to our usual 15 second sequences in
the setup section!  I had a new computer that I’d never loaded with the old WSJT
4, so I had to find, load and set up the program before I could even start our
sked, all the while listening to Jeff’s big burns rattling my speakers for 5
minutes!  We made up for it by working both bands in less than ten minutes after
I settled down and I still caught up with W2FU and Andy on 2m after that as
planned!  A bit hectic for a few minutes, but still fun!   Only missed one sked
on Sunday morning with W4SHG (who accomplished a superhuman effort to be QRV
after losing his antennas only a week before) and that was mainly because of a
miscue on who was to be on what sequence (sorry Steve!).       

Sunday conditions were average, none of the loud signals from the night before. 
Activity was still better than average however, and a lot of Q’s went into the
log.  Even the afternoon doldrums were more productive than usual.  The higher
bands finally got better as the day progressed and were back to normal in most
directions by the evening.  Luckily I’d made skeds with or ran into some of the
stations I’d tried with the night before and was able to add a lot more high
band Q’s and mults into the log.  I was also thrilled to run into several old
friends I hadn’t heard in a while, including Smitty W0DQY who came on for a
while just to give out a few points, and probably spent way too much time
catching up with them.  High point of the evening though was finding VE3AX in
FN02 on CW just above 144.220 (my contest 2M “hangout” frequency).  We worked on
2M, then QSY’d to 222.  We didn’t complete there the first time, but went back
again to finally complete over 15 minutes later.  Once again I spent way too
much time on one contact, but it was so far away and difficult that finally
completing it really made the contest for me!  I lucked into several other
stations with lots of bands, sweeping Gary K3SIW on all 8, the only station I
was able to do that with all contest.  We did them all on SSB over 125 miles due
in large part to his excellent microwave station!    It was a solid January
contest without extraordinary propagation, but with reasonably good band
conditions for a change.    

73 de Bob K2DRH


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