[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:  177    87
    2:  122    54
  222:   40    27
  432:   57    31
  903:   13    11
  1.2:   21    13
  2.3:    3     3
  3.4:    3     3
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  436   229  Total Score = 155,033

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

This one had it all Au, Es and even some enhanced tropo. Back in December one of
my 902/3 antennas fell down due to a cyclic stressed mast bracket, and while the
parts needed to fix it arrived a few days before the contest the weather was too
bad to even consider replacing it. Luckily the weekend before was really mild
for January so I re-cabled for one antenna and it worked OK. Also had to
re-cable for one 6M antenna. The bottom 6M2.5WL was open, probably due to a
setscrew vibrated loose in the driven element.  The 6M antennas vibrate a lot
in a light breeze.  The DE is way too far out to reach so it will have to come
down in the spring to be repaired. At least it’s the easier of the two to
deal with and removing it will make getting the 902 up a bit easier too. I had
the other 6M antennas all disconnected from testing it, so when the Es started
I had to scramble to get them all working again during the contest since
openings like we had for this contest tend to work better with lower antennas. 


 
Saturday morning was busy with making arrangements to fly to NY Monday due to
the not unexpected death of N2KMA’s mother that occurred late Friday night.
When the contest started I was already tired and distracted so probably
didn’t take as much advantage of the conditions as I could have.  N2KMA
insisted that I keep out of her way as she made the endless phone calls, but I
took a lot of time off to do the normal household stuff for us and the dogs
while she was doing that. I’m thankful for even being able to work this one
at all under the circumstances, and it was good in that it kept my mind off
things too.       
 
It was fun to work Es in January, but since it was mostly open to TX and FL big
rates never really materialized.  Worked a lot of multipliers so it made it
worthwhile to stay on 6 most of Saturday, but I knew that I couldn’t neglect
the other bands. So whenever the opportunity arose I’d QSY for a band run. I
had made a lot of WSJT skeds so that helped the mults out too. Good thing I
did, I didn’t hear a lot of CQs for random Qs at all, and only captured one
station even when I left it on to get a couple hours sleep.
 
I didn’t get into much Es on Sunday at all, and the few stations I heard were
the loud ones I’d worked the day before. Sunday was so quiet here locally that
I found myself nodding off in the chair several times. We did have a very nice
Au Sunday evening and I was able to work several stations on 6M ssb then QSY
them to 2M cw.   All in all it was a good one that I would have enjoyed a lot
more under different circumstances.


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