[Fourlanders] Contest Report from Up North

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Hi Flatfooters and Fourlanders --

I thought I'd give a report on CQ VHF 2018 from up here in EN75.  I 
think it was quite a different experience than most, because we never 
had an opening to Europe (at least, not north of Portugal).

Claimed score 26,593 -- 204 Qs, 131 grids, 6M only.

FT8 was a Godsend.  Without it, I would have had many fewer Qs and many 
many fewer grids.  I used it for all but about 50 Qs on SSB during one 
good run Sunday morning; there was no other time when conditions were 
good enough for SSB or even CW here.  I also got on MSK144 for the first 
time and made two or three contacts there.

FT8 contest mode was a disaster.  I started out with it turned on, but 
inevitably the other station was in the opposite mode.  So I turned it 
off.  Then the next station had it on.  I don't much care whether we 
decide on normal or contest mode, but we have to get everyone doing the 
same thing!

Attached is a grid map which is pretty typical of what I see up here -- 
very strong coverage to the south  (including the Caribbean) and up the 
East coast, not so much to the west, and a big hole around Ohio.  (I'm 
about 500 miles almost due north of Dayton, and about 1000 miles almost 
due north of Atlanta.)  I also got CU2 and EA8 which aren't shown.  The 
two Hawaii Qs are probably my longest DX from here.

This is a really interesting location.  It has some minuses -- too far 
north for good EU propagation, too far out of everyone's beam pattern, 
and not enough locals to make 2M worth much effort.  But on the other 
hand, the semi-rare grid helps, I have 20 plus miles of open water to 
the east, and I have an incredibly low noise level -- on my IC7300 with 
Preamp2 the S-meter was S0, not even showing a blue bar.  So I hear a 
lot, and really need extra power to even things out.

This year I ended up having that power.  Before Hamvention, I ordered an 
Acom 1200S solid state amp from DX Engineering.  They originally 
promised late May delivery, but it kept getting delayed finally out 
almost to September.

But as I was driving north last week, the nice lady at DX Engineering 
called and said they'd sell me the display unit from Hamvention at a 
modest discount.  I said sure, had them ship it up here, and it arrived 
on Beaver Island on Thursday.  It's very cool -- looks more like a piece 
of HiFi gear than ham radio.

However, I had some problems with the protection circuit randomly 
kicking out, signaling overdrive or high SWR.  But the drive was 
appropriate, and the LP peak reading meter didn't show any wobbles in 
SWR (about 1.2).  It would go crazy and trip every time I keyed down for 
half an hour, then magically get better.

I talked to DX Engineering's Acom expert this morning and he suggests 
something occasionally arcing between the output and the antenna.  I 
suspect an N male to N male adapter between the power meter and the 
feedline.  I took that out and have been hammering on the amp all 
morning and so far, so good.  Intermittent problems are such a pain...

Anyway, I had a blast, was able to work W4NH, and look forward to next time.

73,
John
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