[3830] CQWW VHF W3SO Multi-Op HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    CQ Worldwide VHF Contest - 2021

Call: W3SO
Operator(s): W3BTX W3SF W3XOX W3IDT
Station: W3SO

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: WPA
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  113    62
    2:  023    18
-------------------
Total:  136    80  Total Score = 12,720

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

We (almost) always start on ssb with the beams SE (To Baltimore / Washington /
Richmond) and have a good hour or so in that direction from our perch on
Wopsononock Mountain in WPA.

This time no contacts anywhere on 6m until about 15 minutes in - with a very
loud KA0 in MN. I thanked him for being on ssb. He said he would only be on
ssb/cw. Good for him. There simply was no one on ssb or cw on either 6m or 2m.
No one on FT4 either. More thunderstorms / lightning than contacts forced total
disconnect of all coax, rotor control lines, and equipment power lines for hours
Saturday afternoon.

Restart. Boom! Dead 2meter amp. Take it apart. Plastic sheet (kapton?)
between fixed output capacitor plates and a standoff show signs of
carbon from arching. Clean up. Make new plate from spare sheet.
Reassemble. Blows more fuses, but no more arching. Chase many possible
causes. Constant opening of power supply and amp to test things.
Negative grid current - bad sign for tubes.

Call Lunar Link / Manitou Systems. On a contest SUNDAY, you ask? Steve
Simons, W1SMS, calls us back in a couple of hours. Much discussion of
what tests have we done, and what could be the cause of the negative
grid current. Bias circuitry becomes main suspect.  Pack up 2m amp and
ps for well equipped home work bench. Depart for nice dinner even before
contest officially ended.

While trouble shooting 2m amp, try one tube, then the other, try probe
in here, then in there, 6 meter op plays safety office - "220 plug
disconnected?", "HV bleeding down to nothing?"; So, 6m off air
for hours
most of Sunday as well.

Didn't matter. Even the "SSB at top of even UTC hours, CW at top of odd
UTC hours" protocol, yields very few contacts. FT8 alone is just too
boring - can't remain excited about the "contest". Did work some of
EUs
on FT8, but they're just grids, guys! Would much rather work mid-west or
southwest grids on ssb at 100/hour, than be dx-ing at 10 qso per
hour (at best).

VHF contests as we have known them have ended.
One "pandemic" ago we circulated widely a discussion / proposal on
VHF
contest rules - principally advocating multiple contacts per station per
band, specifically one each SSB, CW, and any form of digital, with some
additional rules to prevent really artificial contacts. One refrain from
the ensuing reflector / email discussion was that "let's wait and see
how FT8 really influences contesting over the next year or so".
18 months later, we know: FT8 has terminated classical VHF contesting.

Let's be clear, we have nothing against FT8. It's drawn people into VHF
(as has, of course, 6m availability in modern HF radios). Contest
*participation* - measured as the number of logs submitted - is up.
GOOD. Total contacts is, of course, also up - a direct consequence of
higher participation. But a cursory look at *rate* - contacts per hour -
is down. That is, band *activity* - workable stations per hour is down.
That needs to be addressed. Multiple contacts per station is the solution.

For the Wopsononock Mountaintop Operators
Bob, w3idt

.......
. Robert F. Teitel, W3IDT
.
. w3idt at comcast.net
. w3idt at arrl.net
........


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