[Fourlanders] June 2016 contest Summary

Wed Jun 15 23:53:45 EDT 2016

I just wanted to let everyone know that I talked to Mile High today and we are all set for both June and September next year.  I also confirmed us for September this year.  Now that I know the new procedure for making reservations at Mile High (year in advance) this shouldn't be an issue again.  One question.  Do we have any plans to do anything for CQWW VHF in July?  Thanks.

73
Jim, W4KXY

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 14, 2016, at 3:43 PM, Bob Lear <w4zst at windstream.net> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
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