[Fourlanders] September Contest Report

[Bob Lear]

W4ZST 2007 FourLanders September Contest Report

Mile High Campground EM85jm  Multi-OP  6m thru 2304 + 5760

Contest crew: Jim W4KXY (6m Band Captain), Kim WG8S, Paul W4SKI,
Bob W4ZST (2m Capt), Kos N4NIA, Bill KI4US, Brian NX9O (222 Capt),
Ivan K4VJM, Jeff W0ONR, Ron WW8RR (432 Capt), Jim WE8W, Bob WA4VJC,
Mac K4RBM, Scott NN4W, Dean K2JB, Gary N8CQ and his son Josh.

Special Thanks to our newest members this contest; Mac K4RBM, Scott NN4W 
and Dean K2JB for joining up with us.  Special thanks to Mac and Scott 
for pulling trailers for the trip and to Dean for cooking the Cherry 
Cobbler in his Dutch Oven for dessert on Saturday night (even if some 
folks who were operating didn't get any!!!  Thanks to all hands present 
for their work during set-up and take down, both of which went quickly 
and smoothly due to the large crew.

The weather was excellent for the entire weekend.  I don't think we've 
ever had a weekend up there without rain sometime, but this one was an 
exception.  Cool at night and warm during the day.

The tower trailers worked well and I think I've solved the problems that 
we had before.  The only semi-major problem we had this time was the 432 
rotator wouldn't rotate while we were prepping the tower.  We swapped 
out that rotator with the microwave rotator and Gary came to the rescue 
on Saturday morning bringing us a spare rotator to use and we got 
everything up and running before contest time.  Gary also donated the 
rotator to the club.  Thanks from all of us.

Jeff W0ONR once again did the cooking and it was wonderful.  One 
wouldn't think that we could have that much food on a camping trip! 
BBQ, Baked Ham and Meatloaf for dinner entrees, Brats and Burgers for 
lunches, Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, Pancakes and French Toast for our 
breakfasts were the 'menu du contest' and we were W4 “Not Hungry” once 
again.

Operations wise, we had a good score for September.  I certainly had the 
best microwave showing since I've been doing those bands and we didn't 
even hear from some of the expected stations.

189,819 is our claimed score and the breakdown by band is:

6m:  309 Q’s, 92 Grids
2m:  147 Q’s,  37 Grids
222:   46 Q’s,  25 Grids
432:   73 Q’s,  27 Grids
903:   11 Q’s,    8 Grids
1296:  14 Q’s,   10 Grids
2304:   22(7+15) Q’s, 7 Grids
5760:	15 Q's,   1 Grid

On 6m we again ran W4KXY’s new FT2000 along with a Commander Amp.  The 
set-up worked flawlessly again.
The 2m station was an FT920 to a DEMI xvtr driving a Commander II. 
Brian had no problems this time with the 222 station.
FT1000MP, DEMI xvtr and Lunar Link Amp.
432 worked great for a while with Ron's new 910 in the line, but it lost 
  power and Ron replaced it with his IC475 repaired from June.
Ron has a HB K2RIW style amp on 432 driving the stacked pair of FO25’s.

The W4ZST 1296 amp that had died before the June contest had been 
repaired and back to full output (only a broken solder joint) and the 
microwave stations operated the entire contest with no problems.
I don't think we missed any Q’s this time because of frequency questions 
on the microwaves as I retested all three stations and checked the 
frequencies before leaving home and marked the offsets prominently. 
Generally we found the other stations or v.v. immediately.
We did miss hearing some of the usual stations though and don't know 
what happened to them as we didn't work them on any bands.

Another great contest and good time had by all.  Again having
additional folks made set-up and take down fast and easy.
Having the extra tent for storage of our extra containers and equipment 
again was a great help.

This contest cost each of us full participants $51.  We again had to 
rent more camping spaces than usual, but the cost was spread out over a 
larger group and that broke down to $23 each.  The fuel split came to 
only $5 each.  The food ended up costing us about $23 per person for all 
the meals. About the same as June.

No contest Pix reported yet but we'll send another update if someone 
sends us some.

Thanks to all who participated and hope you will all plan to come for 
both contests next year.

73, Bob W4ZST, FourLanders President