[3830] CQWW VHF K2DRH SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide VHF Contest

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

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: EN41 IL
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  444   151
    2:  180    50
-------------------
Total:  624   201  Total Score = 161,604

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

Being out of town almost continually since the June VHF contest, it was a race
to put the station back together for this one after the failures of both of my
primary 6M and 2M transverters and my 2M preamp.  After literally thousands of
QSOs over the past several years they had just plain worn out!  Once again
Steve and Sandy at DEMI made sure I had my repaired transverters well in time
for the contest and they are working better than ever.  Gerry at SSB
Electronics sent me a repaired 2M preamp by Thursday, the day I returned to the
home QTH, and on Friday morning I installed it on the tower just ahead of a huge
thunderstorm.  This was not to be the only thunderstorm of the weekend. 

6M was open a little right at the start to FL, but quickly closed up and most
of Saturday afternoon was brute force tropo QSOs with an occasional short burst
on 6M to TX or to somewhere out west with low density.  Most QSOs were tropo out
to about 300 miles or so.  That still accounted for a couple of good hours until
the interest died down when 6 didn’t open.  It was pretty dull until about
0100 when the band finally opened to 1, 2 and 3 land for a couple of hours,
with the occasional 4 and 5 thrown in for good measure.  It kept moving around
a lot and the QSB was deep, but manageable with a pair of antennas.  2M was
actually in pretty good shape in the evening but there weren’t a lot of
stations on.  It was getting really noisy to the west with static crashes as a
huge thunderstorm moved in.  By about 0345Z I had to shut down as we got
pounded for the next three hours.  I was able to make one 6M WSJT QSO on a low
antenna, but the high ones were useless with rain static so I got some extra
sleep.  N0URW suffered a severe lighting strike from this storm and lost most
of his station when the coax fused to the towers.  

Sunday morning 2M was in good shape and I was able to make several 400-500 mile
plus QSOs to the south and SE.  It stayed good all morning and I was able to
take good advantage of that to the NW too.  6M never really opened well
although I did have some FL in very early, a few bursts to AZ and NM, and kept
hearing TX off and on all day. Unfortunately it was pretty much the same
stations calling and there were fewer and fewer responses to my CQs.  Guess the
single band 6M Texans don’t hunt and pounce much since they were planted
pretty much in the same places every time the band opened to there.  Had a
decent burst to the SW and NW at around 1600Z - 1700Z with several XE and VE5/6
stations.  The last few hours were very slow.


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