[Fourlanders] FW: [Sawnee Radio] VHF FM contest results

Wed Jun 22 22:24:45 EDT 2016

Great job!  I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Ryan yet but hope to soon.

73
Jim, W4KXY

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 22, 2016, at 8:09 AM, Ron Rogers <ww8rr at charter.net> wrote:
> 
> Here’s a fine example of the fun and accomplishment harvested by one of our local VHF enthusiasts (KK4OSG, Ryan) when he again entered the ARRL June VHF contest running in just the “FM Only” class.
>  
> Ron
> WW8RR
> From: sawneeradio at googlegroups.com [mailto:sawneeradio at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ryan Kovacs
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 10:08 PM
> To: Sawnee Amateur Radio Association
> Subject: [Sawnee Radio] VHF FM contest results
>  
> Another June VHF contest came and went. I decided that this would be my last year doing it from Blood Mountain at 4460’ because it is too far to hike. I am looking to team up next year with some friends and find a more comfortable location we can drive to.
> I had several goals to accomplish for this year: Make more contacts, especially on 6m; to spend the entire contest on the mountain; reduce my pack weight to less than 50Lbs from about 70Lbs last year; and get a better antenna for 6m.
> I did all of these things except I ended up packing up right after lunch on Sunday due to the pop-up thunder storms. Something about being the highest thing in the area with a metal pole 25 feet in the air next to me didn’t make me feel all that comfortable.
> The first 3 hours of the contest I kept pretty busy working people and switching between bands to work each contact on the 4 bands I could for FM (6m, 2m, 220Mhz, 440Mhz). After that it started to slow down a bit and I was able to take a break for dinner. Dinner was a pouch of soup warmed up on nearby rocks and rice. After dinner the QSO rate slowed down to about 10 per hour. Just before bed I made contact with the contest group of AA4ZZ in Boone, NC - EM96, a new grid for me on 2m so I was happy to get that extra multiplier before bed.
> Last year when I woke up Sunday morning there was some great tropo ducting down to the South on 2m and I was able to work into Florida. This year I did not have anything when I checked the aprs maps. I did seem to have some enhancement but not anything stellar. Then Bryan, W3CP told me around 8am to look east. Slowly some enhancement started to show up. Before long I was working contacts much further east of me into the Myrtle Beach area. That ended up lasting about an hour or so then dissipated. About that time I was turning my beam by hand up toward the NE and heard someone announce a 5 call sign and said Boston on 6FM… I thought did I hear that right? KD5JR answered my call and confirmed he was NW of Boston just as clear as if I was talking to my friend across town. Wow.
> We talked for a minute or two then I decided to see who else was out there. In the next 45 minutes I worked stations in FN42, FN33, FN31 and FN24. All about 900 mile contacts on 6 meter FM! This was also my first time I have talked that far on 6m FM so it was a real high note to end the morning on.
> Overall I was very pleased with how long my batteries lasted, the performance of the antennas and the radios. I put a lot of planning into the trip and it was easier this time to make the hike up the mountain with less weight.
> Here are my abbreviated results
>  Total Contacts = 179
>  Total Points = 7,326
>  
> Total Contacts by Band and Mode
>  Band    CW   Phone  Dig   Total     %
>  ----        --   -----     ---   -----     ---
>     6         0      34       0      34      19
>     2         0     102      0     102     57
>  1.25       0       9       0       9         5
>    70        0      34      0      34      19
>                --   -----     ---   -----     ---
>  Total      0     179       0     179     100
> Total Contacts by Grid:
>  Grid        Total     %
>  ---------   -----   ---
>  EM74           68    38
>  EM84           49    27
>  EM73           22    12
>  EM75           11     6
>  EM85            8     4
>  EM83            6     3
>  EM93            2     1
>  FM04            2     1
>  FN42            2     1
>  EM65            1     1
>  EM76            1     1
>  EM82            1     1
>  EM94            1     1
>  EM95            1     1
>  EM96            1     1
>  FN24            1     1
>  FN31            1     1
>  FN33            1     1
>  Total = 18
> If you are interested in photos of this year, you can find them here:
> https://flic.kr/s/aHskBUvfFD
>  
> Ryan
> KK4OSG
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sawnee Amateur Radio Association" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sawneeradio+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to sawneeradio at googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sawneeradio.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
> _______________________________________________
> Fourlanders mailing list
> Fourlanders at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/fourlanders
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/fourlanders/attachments/20160622/e8fb7490/attachment-0001.html>