[Fourlanders] January VHF contest W4NH

[Bob Lear]

The W4NH contest crew did the ARRL January VHF contest at the W4ZST QTH 
as usual.  We had
a good turnout of operators and visitors but not the best in propagation 
which is pretty
much standard for the January contest.

Not our best and not our worst January scores.  Also just got our 
certificate for last
January when we were Fifth Place nationwide in full multi.  Here are the 
results this time:
   Band       Q's      Grids
50        89        35
144       55        22
222       24        11
432       28        13
Total     196       81  making around 20k points

Thanks to all the band captains; Johnny K4SQC on 6m who didn't get to 
stay overnight but all
the regular 6m ops took care of keeping us on the air.  Kos N4NIA set up 
the 2m station on Saturday
morning as he ended up having to work Friday night.  The 2m station was 
flawless this time.  Thanks
to Jack K5FSE for again supplying his W6PQL 2m amp for the contest.
I (W4ZST) set up 222 station and it also performed well except for a 
problem with the sequencer.  Seems
one of the outputs decided to stay closed permanently but I managed a 
work around for the contest and will
fix it permanently soon.  Thanks to Brian NX9O for the use of his fine 
222 contest station.
Ron WW8RR brought the 432 station and after an initial connector problem 
with his amp, things went smoothly.
We ran the usual stacked pairs on each band, with a 4 antenna H-frame on 
432.  All stations except 222 also
had omni antennas in the air for the contest.  We had the new 2m remote 
relay switching set up now and it
worked well.  Thanks to Ron for obtaining the relay and building that up 
for contest use.

One new thing about setting up here for the contest is that I have run 
permanent feedlines from the shack to
the far end of the building and to the side where we locate the 222 
antennas.  Also put rotator cables in
and that means we don't have to spend the time unrolling hard line and 
rotor cables and trying to keep them
out of our way.  Two rotor cables to each location for both a rotator 
and antenna switches.  The new feedlines
are LMR-600 with N connectors that our friend Art Chase KC4FRV donated 
to the FourLanders.  We used some for
new feedlines on the mountain in September too.

Besides the band captains, we had the following operators for the contest:
Kim WG8S, Jim W4KXY, Ivan K4VJM, Jack K5FSE, Jerry W5TDY, Bill KI4US, 
John N8UR and a new op from here in
Dahlonega, Matthew Cope KM4OHR.  Matthew is a senior in HS and has been 
helping me around the yard and shack
for a couple of months.  He took right to the contesting and really 
enjoyed it.  He also helped me much with
pulling the new cables inside the building, a three man job that the two 
of us finally got done!!  All these
ops except Jerry and Johnny stayed overnight.

We had visitors too.  Matthew's Dad, Rick Cope, KM4OHS came by for a 
while on Saturday as did Brian W3CP and Ryan
KK4OSG from the Cumming area, and Joe AD4PZ and Vicki N4VLB came by to 
visit from the GARS club.  Also Ken KM4LJO
and Susan KM4LJL from here in Dahlonega came and visited both Saturday 
and Sunday.  All visitors got to witness the
bedlam going on here, even though there weren't any great pileups or 
heavy activity on the bands.

In the wee hours Sunday morning we started out with some 6m FSK441 skeds 
and Jim stayed up all night doing that and
ended up with 18 Q's and grid multipliers that we probably wouldn't have 
worked all directly.  I also made one 2m
EME QSO to Russia but by then I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes 
open and had to hit the sack.  The moon conditions
for the weekend were not good.  Ron didn't hear anything on 432.  We 
didn't make our skeds on 2m FSK441.
We tried but weren't successful.  I think everything was set up OK but 
the meteors didn't
seem to be cooperating for 2m like they were for Six!  Just had one ping 
decode on Two.

Forgot to mention that my 6m amp blew something on Sunday.  We just 
operated barefoot after that and still made some
Q's but still no propagation.  Turns out one of the DC plate blocking 
caps blew, shorting the HV and then blowing the fuse.  It
doesn't look bad and consultations with knowledgeable folks sound like 
that wouldn't have caused other things to go bad.  I have
some contacts for replacement caps and will update the group when I make 
the repair and test the amp out.

As usual we ate well.  Four of us were here on Friday evening and we 
went to Johnny B's for dinner and had biscuits
for breakfast on Saturday morning.  We met up with a big crew at 
Rooster's for lunch on Saturday where everyone had
a great lunch.  We then came back and kicked off the contest.

Saturday evening Jerry brought his famous smoked BBQ Pork, Pinto Beans, 
and some great smoked sausages.  I made a large
batch of slaw to go along with it.  We had a good turnout for dinner, 
including some of our visitors.  Sunday breakfast
was Pancakes & Sausage Patties, Lunch was Hot dogs with slaw and Chips. 
The few of us left Sunday evening ate left-overs
and were quite satisfied with BBQ, Wings and such that was left over in 
the fridge!

Thanks to all the operators and visitors for the contest and especially 
Jerry for the great BBQ dinner!

As some of you know, MileHigh Campground took reservations early and 
rented all our spaces to another (non-amateur) group
for the June contest weekend.  Kim and Ron are looking into alternatives 
with some help from Dean K2JB and Howard up in
Asheville for an appropriate alternate site for us to do the contest.  
Worst case we will just do the contest from here
at my QTH in EM84 as we have done a couple of other times besides all 
the January contests.  We will see how things
work out.  Be sure to put the contest weekend, June 11-13, on your 
calendars either way.

We did have our yearly FourLanders members meeting on Sunday after lunch 
during a lull time.  Officers re-elected were
Bob W4ZST, President, Ron WW8RR, VP and Jim W4KXY as Treasurer.  Kos 
N4NIA stepped forward to offer to be Secretary to
help take the load off Brian and was duly elected.  Dues were collected 
at the meeting and anyone who wasn't there who
wishes to remain an active, dues-paying member, you can send your $30 to 
our Treasurer, Jim Worsham, W4KXY, good on QRZ.

We did vote to purchase the set of M2 HO loops for 6m from Johnny and 
plan to use some of the funds from donated SK items
to be sold at hamfests to buy trailer tires and do some other 
maintenance.  We thank Daisy Ellis and Nancy Riggs, wife and
daughter of Ruddy Ellis W4LNG (SK August 2015) for donating his 
remaining hamshack items to the FourLanders and thanks to
Jim W4KXY for taking the lead to inventory and pick up the items for us 
(giving W4ZST a break!).

Hope to see folks at hamfests, the SVHFS conference and especially the 
June contest, wherever we end up doing it.

73, Bob