[3830] 50FallSprnt WW2Y Single Op HP

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                    50 MHz Fall Sprint - 2020

Call: WW2Y
Operator(s): WW2Y
Station: WW2Y

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: FN11
Operating Time (hrs): 4.0

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 28  Mults = 15  Total Score = 420

Club: Mt Airy VHF Radio Club

Comments:

Many thanks go to individuals of the Southeastern VHF Society for sponsoring the
fall sprints. 

 I spent about a week prior to this past weekend’s 6m sprint looking for a
portable location somewhere in FN11. Why FN11? Ever since the multi-operator
contest crews at K3UZY and K3YTL has evaporated in its existence nearly a decade
ago, FN11 has become quite a rare grid despite of being in close proximity to
population centers of neighboring grid squares located in states of
Mid-Atlantic, western New York, eastern Pennsylvania, and southern New England.
At Red Rock, Rob, N3RN has tried sustaining the momentum of post K3YTL efforts
by having a scaled down multi-operator staffed version, but he eventually gave
up due to the lack of the critical mass needed to keep going forward. He still
occasionally operates from home.

As of last Friday, I didn’t succeed in finding a place to operate and I
resigned to the fact I may use my station at home, which is plagued with RFI in
most critical azimuth headings, plus having a hill’s base very close to me
rising 160Ft above me in addition to dense tall trees on top of that towards the
southwest attenuating signals further. I was planning to set up the station plus
a portable antenna mounted on painters’ pole attached to the 2nd story
balcony.

It’s now Saturday at 9am and my contest juices are now flowing.  I began to
have fleeting thoughts about acting on a last minute ditch effort to operate
from somewhere else that would be more interesting and gratifying than being at
home. A place I really admired since my youth was being at Wapwallowpen Creek
gorge near the town of Berwick for trout Fly-fishing, hiking, swimming and
diving beneath waterfalls, scrambling up old DuPont black powder mill structures
scattered alongside the creek, and camping by the babbling water. My
grandfather, a civil engineer on my mother’s side of family purchased this
property from DuPont approximately a century ago and planned to build a
hydroelectric dam, which never came into existence due to the Great Depression,
WWII, and financial troubles.

 There’s a place I’ve driven by every time on the way to and from
Wapwallowpen that is off of Rt.80 which is elevated relatively high compared to
the valleys below and I wondered what it would be like to operate VHF from
there. I thought to myself, what do I have to lose by asking the owner for
permission?  The time is now or never. At 10am, I called the owner and I
carefully and cordially asked him if it’s okay for me to set up the mast and
antenna near my car and operate my radio for the sprint. He asked me “Are you
going to trip the circuit breaker?” I told him no, even though I was planning
to bring my amplifier!  He said “Yes you can do it.” I was shocked, no pun
intended. 

After we hung up, I literally scrambled very quickly to pack my Penninger Tipper
mast and rotor, antenna, radio, laptop, amplifier, portable tables, associated
radio stuff, and my clothing bag. I hit the road at 12:15pm and arrived at the
site by 2:30pm.  Like the trip to FN24 a month ago, it’s 90 degrees and muggy
once again.  I’m outside with the sun beaming zillions of photons down on me
while setting up the mast plus antenna and scoping out the available guy rope
tie points in order to avoid local pedestrian or vehicular traffic. I erred the
side of caution for obvious reasons and I possibly want to return, especially on
good terms!

All of the gear was ready to go by 6pm and I quickly ate a sandwich and jumped
into the shower to get cleaned up. At the start of the sprint, my first contact
was using SSB with KD4AA in FM17. Initially, that was a flush of encouragement,
but the activity really became light and very slow for the rest of the sprint. I
was lucky to work someone in my own grid, N3RN. Thanks Rob! 

After half an hour, it seemed as though everyone got sucked into the FT8's event
horizon once again due to its enormous tug of its gravitational well and they
never returned. Just like a super massive black hole in our own galaxy’s
center engulfing all the surrounding matter in its wake. I commit myself to
hammer away using SSB and CW as much as I could and to resist the temptation of
FT8. I succeeded by working only one station on FT8 during the entire time.
However, I did manage to work several stations on FT4. I’d wish people wake up
to its benefits. Guess it’s hard to overcome the inertia of the masses and to
sustain the momentum, only to have the critical mass disintegrate and eventually
scatters.

At about 3.25 hours into the sprint, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a
healthy amount of meteor scatter activity while using MSK-144 mode and I was
hearing decodes from multiple stations at once. I thought to myself this is cool
and began to jump into the fray. I only worked three stations, but it was fun. I
must mention Jim, KO9A who has really acute ears and he runs 100 watts for a
easy contact. The curious thing was that several big guns seem to be not hearing
me after the initial exchange segment of the contact and never complete.  Alex,
KR1ST and others experienced the same.

There were a fair number of the usual suspects that were absent during the
sprint. This is a continuing trend and it’s accelerating quickly. I think now
is the time for sponsors of all VHF contests to act in restoring and promoting
activity ASAP. I could imagine that the commercial interests are licking their
chops only to conquer our precious radio spectrum away from us. Especially, when
there are several 3 KHz channels out of 4 MHz that are active on 6 meters. That
would really be a bummer if we sit back and do nothing! There’s so much at
stake and we can turn this around if we take action now.

How about having separate VHF contests that are analog and digital specific? 
Maybe, having a dedicated FT8 contest? Could you imagine introducing SSB, CW, FM
(10m), and every digital mode in a single CQWW or ARRL DX HF contest? It will
disperse activity so much that it would lose its critical mass and people would
lose interest. I feel this is the consequence for the VHF contests. Another
solution is to allow QSOs for each mode, similar to the ARRL 10m contest, IARU
radio sport HF championship, WRTC, state QSO parties, etc. Maybe someone can
devise a better solution. Let’s put our creative minds in gear.
73,
Peter WW2Y


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