[3830] ARRL June VHF K2DRH Single Op LP

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                    ARRL June VHF QSO Party

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

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

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  755   215
    2:  107    35
  222:   35    22
  432:   60    24
  903:           
  1.2:   16    11
  2.3:    3     3
  3.4:    4     3
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  980   313  Total Score = 353,064

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

Recovery from last year’s lighting hit is almost complete but it has been a
huge struggle made even more difficult by my work schedule.  Seems they
scheduled a late refueling outage that was extra long due to major turbine
generator overhauls that really put my tower work behind schedule.  The snowy
cold winter complete with early spring snow really set me back, and then the
wet windy and unseasonably cold April/May didn’t help out much either.  I
could not get it all done before the outage and found it necessary to climb at
odd hours after working 12 hours days to take advantage of any good weather. 
Finding more stuff that needed repair didn’t help much either.

I was still finding stuff broken a week before the contest when the pressure to
get back on line was keeping me at work even longer then the usual 7/12’s.  I
had to climb the day before the contest twice and again Saturday morning to get
the 2304 and 3456 all working but a shorted SMA T/R relay coil diode blew up the
sequencer 24V relay feed and shorted it to the 12V to the preamps … of course
poof went the preamps or so I thought.  I had to do a work around kludge up
with another sequencer and a 3456 bypass, but miraculously the 2304 preamp
still worked!  Not for long, it quit Sunday but I can still hear without it. 
They worked well enough to make the few microwave QSOs that were out there to
be worked.  Who says radio contesting isn’t a physical sport?

The 902/3 transverter suddenly quit on Tuesday morning just before the test
during a great tropo opening.  Which of course, we had NONE of during the
contest.  Contest weekend prop obviously had other ideas.  FEDEX got it to DEMI
on Weds and Steve magically turned it right around, but it did not come back on
Friday and the usually killer reliable FEDEX had bungled it in transit somehow.
 Of course it turned up and they delivered it on Monday!  But while that easily
cost me 25K in points, apparently the seemingly endless hours of Es from just
about everywhere to TX ate my lunch anyway.  One year I’d like the sustained
opening to W1,2,3,4 as well as the mult rich western openings during the ARRL
contest like CQWW 2006.  Over 1400 6m QSOs in a much shorter contest that left
the band still open Sunday afternoon, so I know I can get it done! 

The contest really started off dead here.  6M was teasing in bursts and folks
seemed to hanging out there just waiting for it to open rather than on 2M.  The
starvation from the previous weeks of mostly flat 6M Es conditions probably
didn’t help much either.  Tropo conditions were depressed and any distance
was pretty much unworkable above 432.  In fact even 432 was a struggle.  I
found myself working the multis at 2000Z in the afternoon, something I usually
reserve for the middle of the night since they are always available.  6M opened
to FL and the DM grids in AZ around 2030Z and the fun began, but FL was spotty
and pretty much dried up around 2300Z.  When the runs got slow I tuned to the
DX window and worked a few Caribbean stations after a couple came up in my
pileup. The band started jumping all over out west, but to a lot of small areas
that don’t sustain big rates.  No W1/2/3 on Saturday at all, where the rates
for me are so much better!  Worse I had to climb twice during the contest to
clear a stuck rotor motor.  One brush clip had worked loose and was arcing up
the inside so that had to be resolved by cleaning out the carbon. Who says
radio contesting isn’t a physical sport?

6M was open to AZ and sometimes further west but didn’t hear any TX all day,
where there are actually some stations to work.  By evening it was still spotty
open out west and jumping all over, but by 0100Z I knew I had to get going on
the higher bands.  But tropo conditions were still really bad and the multi
band stations to work were just not there (still playing on 6, calling CQ and
not wanting to QSY.  I find that even the best intentions to “catch you
later” usually winds up to be never.  The rovers were scare or too far for
the conditions so I kept going back on 6M and mult hunting as well as running
in small bursts that would quickly dry up.  Then it seemed like everyone went
to bed instead of going to 2M!  It was hard to find folks to work!  I hadn’t
made many WSJT skeds because I wasn’t 100% sure I’d be able to contest with
the restart schedule so close to the weekend and the complexity of getting a new
turbine up and running.  It wouldn’t be fair not to show up.  There were some
randoms but not very many, seems a lot of the east coast multis didn’t play
this year.   When I went to sleep for a few hours I left it monitoring to see
who was out there, but only recorded a few and was able to catch most of them
in the morning. 

Very early morning Sunday before 6M opened again tropo was very good and I made
the most of it.  I had a great SSB QSO with W5ZN after our random WSJT on 6M (we
could have gone SSB) that led to a bottom four band run out 450 miles, but 432
was still down a whole lot.  However 6 was already open by 1300Z so it really
didn't give me a chance to put a lot in the log before everyone disappeared
again.  Again to the west (sigh), but no W1/2/3/4 at all until much later in
the day.  Doesn't take long for me to work out all the 5s, 0s and 7s in an
area, and its a challenge to hear the weaker double hop from the far west 6s
and 7s through the 40 over RF wall from TX and AZ.  I heard many TX and AZ
stations running at a good clip that were pretty much full scale even with the
IF RX attenuators in.  W1,2,3 was only open for one or two short bursts in the
afternoon and apparently I  was not as loud as the 5s when it did.  Mostly it
was overshooting the population zones and going further east so I’m sure I
missed some Eu but I was not looking to be on the wrong end of any pileups.  I
had to take a backseat to the 8s and 2s several times to some western mults
while I was mult picking so I know it must have been good there for them. 
Hardly heard any 4s at all and even when I did CQ in that direction and any
response I had quickly dried up.

So rates never really hit anywhere near 2006 levels here, and it was slim
pickings again on 2M and above in the evening because 6M was still cranking
right up to the end of the contest.  Worst 2M grid count in quite a long while,
done much better in January!  About an hour before the end Wayne N6NB in DM05
called me in a lull to say I was consistently loud out the west coast all
evening, but most of my calls were going unanswered!  AB5Q John talked with me
right after the bell and said I was the loudest and most consistent station
into NM all day, even running 200W (it’s the aluminum amplifiers), but it
dries up way too quickly to the DM grids after short bursts and I worked a LOT
of dupes. 

 The new DEMI 6M transverter survived being crunched in between two obscenely
loud TX stations (60 over plus) and I was still able to hear most of the weaker
ones, so I'm more than thrilled with the RX.  It was really solid, much better
than anything I’ve ever used before.  The previous DEMI was really quite good
and better than any integrated rig I’ve ever tried, so this is just amazing
performance.  But I may have to hardwire a TX PTT around the internal sequencer
since it chops off my first few syllables.  Whenever I did have a good rate
going I noticed a lot of stations would repeat their call again even though I
got them right.  When the juices are flowing it takes a LOT of concentration to
hesitate a second after you stomp.

73 de Bob


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