[Fourlanders] June 2016 contest Summary

[Bob Lear]

W4NH - June 2016 VHF Contest Summary

Because of a reservation mix up with the campground, the FourLanders did 
the June contest from the W4ZST QTH in EM84ao.  We had looked at a 
couple of other alternative portable locations, one in TN EM75 and 
another around the Pisgah Inn area on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Never 
could find any info about the TN site on top of MontEagle and we made 
contact and application for the Pisgah site but had to cancel that idea 
when we were running out of planning time.  Naturally, we got a letter 
saying we were approved just two days before the contest but still 
without knowing the exact location.  How useful that was!  Anyway, other 
folks had given us info that it probably wouldn't have been a great 
place for us.  As always our easy back-up position is to stay at W4ZST 
and again that helped me out as three sets of antennas were still in the 
air from January and a couple of the stations still set up.  With only a 
couple of short workdays we got it all ready over a week before the contest.

Some very good six meter propagation and a good number of EME Q's for 
the contest brought us a score of 140,768.  This is the highest June 
contest score we've had since 2012 and the highest we've managed from 
operating in EM84.  I didn't realize that we have done the past THREE 
year's June contests here in GA.  Problem is usually lack of 
participants and trailer pullers but this time of couurse it was the 
reservations snafu.

Since 2004 we've consistently been in the top Ten for all three contests 
each year except for last June here in EM84 where we were 12th.  I think 
this is the first time we've really had good openings from my place for 
a contest.  We'll just have to wait and see what place we turn up in 
since it appears a lot of the country had openings.  The NE especially 
had openings to EU that would have given them some good multipliers.  
Sherman really had some good runs on 6m over the weekend and did have a 
few Q's to EU. Kim and Paul got a lot in too.  And as usual, when 6m is 
jumping it really hurts the higher bands as everyone is trying to cash 
in on 6m, so the higher band ops were pretty bored.  Even though 
predictions were for pretty bad EME conditions for the weekend, we did 
pretty well with Kos and Johnny making a total of 18 Q's and 17 grids 
that really added up.  Interesting that they had the duplicate grid from 
Sweden!  Conditions weren't as good on 432 but Ron still made 3 EME Q's 
there.  There appeared to not be much meteor activity and we only made 
one FSK Q on 6m.  We also tried an FSK and JT terrestrial sked on 222 
for the first time but no luck there.  All this activity really did help 
our score if not the morale of the higher band ops.  Here is the 
submitted score summary.

BAND         QSO's        Grids
6m             500            158
2m               74              32
222              16               9
432              29              13
Totals         619            212        for 140,768 points.

Operators for the contest were:   Johnny Kludt K4SQC, Dennis 'Kos' 
Kosmetatos N4NIA, Bob Lear W4ZST, Ron Rogers WW8RR, the band captains 
for 6, 2, 222, & 432 and operators Kim Hensley WG8S, Sherman Banks 
W4ATL,  Bill Pence KI4US, Jerry Long W5TDY,  Ivan White K4VJM, Jack 
Nelson K5FSE, Paul Yaeger W4SKI, Mace Green KD4MG and Paul Hansen W6XA 
.  We were happy to have a couple of new faces join us for the contest, 
Mace and Paul.  Mace is from Gainesville FL and was visiting Paul W4SKI 
in NC and they both came down to the contest.  Paul W6XA has moved back 
to GA and after many invites, finally got to visit and operate the 
contest with us.  We also had several visitors stop by to see the mayhem 
and listen in some but couldn't get them to give the mic a try yet.  Our 
visitors were David KM4LJM and his son Josh KM4LNP, Rick KM4OHS and Rick 
KK4LPP all from here in Dahlonega.  MIke Stipick KC4RI joined us from 
Atlanta and Bob W4GA came down from Morganton.   We had 12 ops staying 
over Saturday night here at the house.   I think we certainly had a new 
record for vehicles parked around the house!!  A pretty good sized group 
sat around in camping chairs under tents outside when not operating.  
I'm sure a considerable number of world problems were solved there!

We had the usual stations:  Six meters used Johnny's FT-2000 and my 
Commander amp and the stacked pair of 5 element beams and M2 HO loop 
omni's; Kos' 2m station with his K3, DEMI 2m transverter and Jack's 
W6PQL amp and the stacked pair of 9 element beams along with the 144 
"beam omni's;  222 was Brian's NX9O station with his FT-1000MP, DEMI 222 
transverter and Lunar Link amp with the pair of 16 element beams; and 
432 was Ron's station with his IC-910, HB K2RIW amp and a four-square of 
K2RIW 432 beams with Az-EL  along with the 432 "omni beams".  We also 
used Johnny's 2m EME station with his Flex 1500, DEMI 2m transverter, M2 
1k2 amp and the pair of M2 20 element dual-polarity beams with Az-El.  
Special thanks to Brian NX9O for the use of his super 222 station even 
when he can't get away to be with us for the contests.

Not too many equipment problems occurred this time.  As usual, the 
computers all act fine before 2 PM on Saturday and then decide to give 
us problems.  We finally got that under control.  A couple of the 
stations had to have the radios reset and the computers re-booted a 
couple of times but that's becoming routine it seems. Kos's 2m 
transverter went down and we hope it's just a relay gone bad.  Put in my 
spare and we had no more problems with that.  All the antennas were 
working fine.  No amplifier problems either. Whew!

As usual we ate well, again starting with Rooster's in Dahlonega where 8 
of us met up for lunch before the contest on Saturday. Saturday night 
dinner was another feast provided by Jerry W5TDY. He smoked a couple of 
nice big briskets, brought a pot of excellent Pinto Beans, home-made 
potato salad, cole slaw and his famous bacon-wrapped, cream cheese 
stuffed, smoked Jalopena peppers.  Special thanks to Jerry for another 
great contest meal. We had pancakes and sausage for breakfast on Sunday 
and ham/turkey/cheese sandwiches and chips for lunch.  On Sunday evening 
Johnny picked up a couple of Pizzas on his way back for those of us left 
by that time.   There were three of us who stayed to the bitter end at 
11PM making just a few Q's in the last couple of hours and then shutting 
down.  Thanks to all who participated and we hope all enjoyed operating, 
eating and just hanging our for the contest.

Sherman took pIctures and they are posted at:

http://bit.ly/1UsLbmQ

Put the September contest on your calendar, September 10th and 11th.  
Again this is one of those years when the contest is only 1 week after 
Shelby.  We do have our reservations for this one. Let's just hope we 
don't have another situation where we just can't get a large enough 
group together to make the trip and pull all the trailers.    Make plans 
now!!  I think if we miss another contest at MileHigh we won't have much 
credibility continuing to try to make reservations ahead of time, so 
please plan to get out for this one.

  Thanks and 73, Bob