[Fourlanders] W4NH June contest Report

[Bob Lear]

Some material blatantly stolen from the W4ATL blog.  Thanks Sherman and 
maybe you should write the contest reports for me!

W4NH operated from Mile High Campground in NC, EM85jm, for the June VHF 
contest.  We had a great time as usual and came home a few pounds 
heavier from all the food available along with a record score for the 
group operating from Mile High.  Thanks to the band captains, Jim W4KXY 
on 6m, Scott NN4W bringing the 2m station, Brian NX9O on 222 as usual 
and Ron WW8RR with the 432 gear.  We did limited multi as usual and also 
had the following operators:  Jim, Sherman W4ATL, Kim WG8S, Paul W4SKI 
and Bob W4ZST mostly operating 6m. Scott, Tom K4TJD and Kos N4NIA mostly 
operating on 2m.  Brian along with new op Jason KF5DSP and Bill KI4US 
holding down most of the duty on 222 and Ron and Jim WE8W with most of 
the 432 operating.  Operators switched in and out and were supplemented 
by Ivan K4VJM, Skip K5AWC, Chris, W5ONT, Dean K2JB, John KW2N and 
Brian's (10 year old) daughter Claire also got on the air some.  We had 
a good number of visitors and others camping with us, but I didn't take 
all the names this time and failed to have a sign-in sheet.  I do know 
we were visited by Philip N4HF and some Ham/motorcycle friends with some 
impressive motorcycle mobile set-ups on Sunday.  Paul's GF Elke and her 
son, friend Garrett and Dean's wife and another friend Howard whose call 
I missed, also ate and camped with the group.  Jason (12 years old) 
KF5DSP is Skip's grandson and he picked up on the contesting bit quite 
quickly.  He really seemed to enjoy operating on 222 and Brian may have 
to worry about competition for the band captain position.  We sure hope 
he will get to be a regular with us and also bring 10 year old brother 
Robert KF5IRC sometime too, but it is a long trip from Houston TX for them.

Unofficial results:  First pass thru the logs reveals 841 Q's and 271 
grids on 6m, 117 Q''s and 41 grids on 2m, 35 Q's and 25 grids on 222 and 
60 Q's and 27 grids on 432 for a total of 417,872 points.  This is a 
record for the group in June at Mile High and almost made it to the 
section record.  As usual the excellent openings on 6m kept the single 
op stations on 6 and cut into the possible totals for the higher bands. 
  Some of the distant 6m grids were CN79, CO90, EO10 FN85 FK49, FK94, 
DL94 and EK71.

This year we had more rain than usual. It rained every afternoon we were 
there which delayed our setup on Friday by a few hours. Fortunately the 
setup gets easier every year so we were fully functional on all bands by 
Saturday morning.  We did have some problems with rain static on 6m, 
especially on the beams, but used the omni's to good advantage.  Also 
had a 2m amp problem, but was replaced with the spare amp and went on 
without incident.  The 2m amp was repaired on site by Ron and is back in 
operation.  One highlight for the 2m station was our first EME contact 
on 2m was made early Sunday morning by NN4W and he's not down off the 
high yet.  It was done with WSJT and was a random contact.  Even more 
impressive.  Several WSJT contacts were made in the wee hours on 6m also.

Contest Food report:  Where would the 'Never Hungry' group be without 
the fine food that Jeff provided along with some very fine assistance 
from Dean K2JB and Howard.  Jeff had Meat Loaf, baked potatoes and Salad 
for us on Friday night, Scrambled eggs with Ham, green peppers and 
onions, and hashbrowns for Breakfast on Saturday, Brats, buns and potato 
salad for lunch.  Saturday evenings meal was prepared by Dean, assisted 
by Howard, and was his famous 'Dutch Oven' delights: Chili, cornbread 
and Cherry Cobbler all cooked in the dutch ovens.  It was excellent. 
Dean even revealed that the secret to his chili was just any standard 
recipe, but with the addition of a can of Rotel tomatoes, Black beans 
along with the red chili beans and some ground Italian sausage. Chris 
W5ONT had brought a lot of extra food, but we weren't in any condition 
to even taste it (but don't worry, it went down just fine at Field Day!) 
Jeff continued on with Pancakes and Sausage for Sunday morning, sloppy 
joes, chips and cole slaw for lunch, spaghetti and meatballs and salad 
for supper and finally French Toast and Bacon for our Monday morning 
breakfst.  Food cost for those staying for all 8 meals was just $32. 
Thanks again to Jeff and Dean for a great weekend of good food.

Cost for the full timers for camping spaces and Generator fuel were only 
$26 and pro-rated for those there only part of the time.  That's a lot 
of food and fun for a weekend for only $58.  Anyone would have spent a 
lot more just staying home and getting into their usual trouble!

 From Sherman's blog:

We had a visit from some Elk that live in the area. They are used to 
humans since they just walked right into the camp and checked out the 6M 
tower trailer. I decided they had worn out their welcome when one 
started snooping in the 6M equipment containers. I went down to retrieve 
the containers to keep them from tearing up the contents or the container.

Sherman also had listed some other duties of the group that I had not 
been including in my usual reports:

Rules Interpretation: KI4US

Chef: W0ONR

Sous-chef: K2JB

Sage: K4VJM

Human Wikipedia: K5AWC

Sherman has posted some pictures of the contest on his website.  You can 
check them out at http://bit.ly/j1OqId or just navigate on his website 
www.shermanbanks.net


Thanks to all who participated, my apologies to anyone I failed to 
mention (maybe I should take notes while I'm there.  Ya think?) and the 
next report will be of the Fourlanders Field Day experience two weeks 
later.  We will also do the CQ WW VHF contest from the W4ZST QTH in July 
on the 16th and 17th.  This is a 6m and 2m only contest.  Our annual 
meeting to elect officers and such will take place Saturday morning the 
16th before the contest.  One nice thing about contesting at my house is 
that I tend not to leave much behind, not like the 15 things I forgot to 
bring to the mountain.

73, Bob W4ZST