[Fourlanders] W4NH CQWW VHF Contest Summary

[Bob Lear]

Another good contest under our belts.  We had a good time operating, 
eating and sleeping at the W4ZST QTH again this year for the CQ WW VHF 
contest with W4NH.  Considerably higher score this year than last but 
the nice band openings were enjoyed by the competition too so we will 
have to see how we did this year.  Last year we were 9th place 
nationwide and 11th place worldwide in our multi-op category with our 
11k points.  We were third in our call area and first (and only!) in GA.
This years effort yielded 278 Q's & 95 grids on 6m and 63 Q's & 24 grids 
on 2m.  6m was open to Ariz, NM, Mexico, Canada, Florida, TX, OK and the 
NorthEast and Canadian Maritimes.  We just couldn't get to 100 grids on 
6m this time.  Raw score is 48,076 points.  We'll see in a few months.

A good operator and visitor turnout:  W4ZST, W4KXY, N4NIA, K4VJM, 
K5AWC & K4TJD	started the contest out and also spent Saturday night. 
N4AC, KI4US, WB4GKI, NN4W, WW8RR, KJ4JBG and KF4ZFP visited and operated 
at various times on Saturday and Sunday.  Joe KJ4JBG took and passed his 
general exam Saturday afternoon at an exam session in Dacula.

We had a great get-together Saturday for lunch at Rooster's with nine 
showing up for the pre-contest lunch.  We had Spaghetti, Salad and Bread 
for Saturday night supper cooked by yours truly, Pancakes, Eggs and 
Bacon for Sunday breakfast cooked by Kos, and Grilled Brats and Hot 
German Potato Salad for Sunday lunch by W4ZST also.  No complaints were 
heard other than the usual moans and groans from overeating.  Jeff's job 
may be in jeopardy!!  We had planned to have Sunday dinner at El Jimador 
after the contest, but after it was over, none of us could eat again 
that soon!

All the radio equipment and computers were already set up on Saturday, 
but Kos and Jim helped with finishing putting up the 2m and 6m Omni 
antenna stacks just before the contest.  The only problems we had during 
the contest were minor problems with WriteLog that had never occurred 
before and we will look into them.  Ron's 6m amp and Jim's 2m amp worked 
fine throughout the contest along with the FT-2000 on 6 and my FT-920 
with DEMI transverter on 2m.

It rained and stormed for brief periods, but did not hinder our 
operating except for the rain static that was cured by grounding the 6m 
tower trailer when we figured that out.

Altogether another great time with the FourLanders Contest team.  We may 
even have recruited a couple of new members for the group this time.

We took a picture of the operators on Sunday afternoon and have sent a 
copy out to many of the fourlanders already.  If you've not seen it and 
want to, let me know and I'll get someone to put it on a web page as we 
can't attach pictures to reflector e-mail.

Start planning for the September contest.  It's less than 7 weeks away. 
  September 11th and 12th at MileHi campground in NC again.  Jeff has 
already signed up as cook as I think he was worried that I might beat 
him to it and he would have to be microwave band captain!!!

73, Bob W4ZST