[3830] ARRL Jan VHF KC0IYT/R Rover HP
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Wed Jan 23 00:56:57 EST 2008
ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes
Call: KC0IYT/R
Operator(s): KC0IYT
Station: KC0IYT/R
Class: Rover HP
QTH: EN34
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 17 5
2: 60 11
222: 31 9
432: 32 8
903: 13 3
1.2: 20 5
2.3: 10 2
3.4: 9 2
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 192 52 Total Score = 25,324
Club: Other (specify when prompted)
Comments:
Summary:
The roads were clean and dry so I felt pretty safe despite the cold
temperatures. Conditions were "flat" (average for January), but I don't think
it was as bad as 2007. After sunset on Saturday the conditions improved
somewhat and Sunday was up and down. There was plenty of QSB to make life
"interesting". I used a 500khz CW filter on the microwave bands that gave
me many QSOs that were unworkable without it.
Saturday I made 106 QSOs total (no count of missed attempts, but it was at
least a dozen) from EN24, EN23, EN33, EN34 for a Saturday-only score of 9282.
This was my third highest scoring contest, and only a bit higher than January
2007. I worked 33 unique calls, which isn't much.
A few pictures:
http://reality.sgiweb.org/overby/ham/2008-JanuaryVHF/index.html
Travelogue:
I loaded radios into the car on Thursday evening so I didn't have so much to
do on Friday evening. Saturday morning I put on layers of clothes and headed
for the Mankato, MN area. I arrived at the grid corner about 45 minutes early
so I drove around a bit to see if there were better spots for EN24 & EN23
than I had been using. Maybe, maybe not. It's FLAT out there, allthough it
may slope to the south a bit. I had minimal setup: rotate the 6m dipole and
put the 2m antenna up on a short mast. I was not rotating the 2m antenna
manually as I've done in the past. I got out the compass and and headings
to several folks, and picked landmarks to point at.
NG0R showed up a few minutes ahead of the contest, so I pointed at him and
we worked common bands. I missed some of you at the start of the contest
because I was aimed due north to EN25. I was glad to pick up EN33 on four
bands from Matt KA0PQW who was probably the 2nd closest station to me at that
time (KA0ZYD from the Mankato area is my guess for closest).
While beaconing at W0ZQ from EN24, I smelled smoke. I pulled power to the
transverter stack and felt around to see what was warm/hot. Nothing. I
powered back up and resumed; a while later the same thing happened and it
looked like my MOSFET DC power switch was on the fritz so I yanked it out
along with the battery booster. Later I put the battery booster back in and
it was fine - I would be lost without those things!
Conditions during the day were tough, but as the sun set, the wind dropped
and I think conditions improved. I heard N4PZ off the side of my antenna and
we worked - what a plesant suprise! I moved to EN33 and worked a few stations
to the southeast, so I wasn't pointing at the twin cities at the start of my
"EN33" time (I listed 30 minutes for a 2 minute move as a schedule buffer).
As a comparison of conditions, I missed Dave, N0KP, on several high bands
earlier in EN23, but later we completed from 1000'-2000' east in EN33.
When it rains, it pours: while running bands with N0KP, Bill K0AWU showed up
and we worked on 2m. I really wanted Bill's rare grid on other bands but at
the same time I hate to drop someone I'm peaked up on so I asked Bill to come
back later. After I finished the bands with Dave, I pointed due north and
made a lot of noise to get Bill's attention, but I never heard from him again
during the contest. Sorry, Bill!
Both days, I frequently found 432 to be better than 2m. I'm running 20W into
a 23el K1FO antenna at about 6' while 2m is 170w into 7el. Last year, even
432 was tough.
Much of the time I had to use headphones to hear or at least understand
others.
Some of you may have noticed that I asked for repeats - usually this was when
I was putting on headphones. I've put a headphone mixer on the list of Things
I Want To Build.
The new addition to my station this contest was a 500khz CW filter for the
FT817 that I use as an IF rig. This filter got me many contacts that would
not have been possible without it. However, it has it's price: most of the
time, I can't find someone with the filter on. But if they are able to find
me and beacon back on my frequency I can usually turn the filter on and find
them. LO drift frequently takes the signal out of the passband so I have to
chase them as they drift, or I lose them.
The car engine is my #1 source of noise (the FT857 noise blanker does a
fantastic job!) but suprising to me the #2 source was the stack of
transverters
in my back seat. It's probably a IF bleed-thru.
Sunday I was feeling kinda crappy, so I got going late. I made it to EN44
over an hour late after giving up on my first choice spot due to snow.
Instead, I blocked a dead-end road :) I only worked a few people from here,
but I activated the grid.
I moved on to EN43 which I think is a rarer grid than EN44. After working
as much of the twin cities folks as I could, I turned southeast to look for
W9FZ/R. I didn't find him, but instead I found K2DRH and ran all bands with
him (6m-3456mhz)! 2304 was particularly tough and required many many repeats
-
I wouldn't have found him at all on 2304 & 3456 without that CW filter.
I found W9FZ near his Hillsboro place (EN43) and we ran the bands. The
dead-end road many of us use for EN43 has a poor shot into the twin cities
compared to going several hundred feet further west into EN33.
My last grid was EN35 on the north side of Minneapolis. I got there ahead
of schedule, partly because I had left an hour of "slack time" between EN43
and EN35. I was there during the Packer's Game but I missed the half-time
"band opening" :-)
6m plagued me. I had S7 level noise most of the time. I'm not sure why, but
at the end of the contest I found the feed wire on the antenna was
disconnected. I don't know when that happened or why it would cause that
much noise.
I traveled to several grids that I never worked: EN24, EN23 and EN44. I
appreciate the "regulars" who followed me around: I worked W0ZQ, NG0R, and
N0VZJ in 6 grids, N0KP and KA0RYT in 5 grids.
There are three big holes in my log: I only worked into EN37 once, I never
heard from any of the Chippewa Valley group, so I never worked EN44, and EN13
appeared to be observing radio silence.
I left 5ghz & 10ghz at home and didn't even operate them when I was in the
Twin Cities.
As I mentioned in my summary, this was my third highest scoring contest (June
2005 and August 2005 were higher). January contest comparison:
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
902+ QSOs 15 19 19 80 52
902+ Grids 3 5 5 12 12
Total QSOs 96 147 146 211 192
Total Grids 14+3 17+4 17+4 28+6 45+7
73 and thanks for the QSOs
Glen, KC0IYT/R
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