[3830] ARRL Sep VHF N2NT Limited Multi-Op HP

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                    ARRL September VHF Contest - 2021

Call: N2NT
Operator(s): N2NT N2NC WW2Y
Station: N2NT

Class: Limited Multi-Op HP
QTH: FN20si
Operating Time (hrs): 28

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  226    54
    2:  226    48
  222:   59    25
  432:   66    24
  903:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  577   151  Total Score = 106,002

Club: Mt Airy VHF Radio Club

Comments:

We spent way too much time in the run up to the contest "improving" a
6m beam fixed to the NE.  The main 6m beams are plagued with solar panel noise
when pointed NE.  The fixed antenna is an old M2 6M7 suspended between trees,
far from the shack.  When we replaced the 350' coax run with 7/8" hardline,
high SWR above 50.300 was causing the amp to trip out on FT8.  Rain made the SWR
issue worse.  I won't go through the unsuccessful iterations to lower SWR.  In
the end, I dusted off my old copy of K6STI's Yagi Optimizer (YO) and came up
with a better design that simply shortened most of the element lengths.  SWR is
now very low up to 50.700 and YO says pattern and gain is better.

We usually use Win-Test for VHF contests.  It has some features that would be
missed if we changed logging software.  Win-Test's lack of integration with
WSJT-X requires a manual process to check for FT8/MSK dupes and log WSJT-X
contacts.  To help with that, I wrote a Perl script that uses the WSJT-X UDP
interface to change colors of messages directly inside WSJT-X.  It was great to
have dupes greyed out and new grids highlighted.  By late Sunday, most of the
decodes were greyed out.  New QSOs and new grids were easy to spot.  An
AutoHotkey script was used to automatically log WSJT-X contacts to Win-Test.  

All equipment worked without issues.  A pleasant change from June.

I took some time out Saturday night for a quick drive home to operate (2 of 4
hours) in the HF NCJ CW Sprint.  I think I'll try and do this every September.

We were hoping the nice weather would bring some enhancement, but conditions
were flat for the most part. Fun to read about the big tropo in other parts of
the country.

Thank you for the QSOs.

- John N2NC, for the N2NT VHF team


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