[Fourlanders] June VHF Contest

[Ron Rogers]

Here's my contest story:
I spent Sat afternoon and evening up at the W4NH operation at Bob's QTH and
drove home late.  Early Sunday morning Darlene and I had an errand to run
and I got back to the house about 10:00.   I fired up the 6M rig to see how
the band was doing and to pass out a few casual 6M contacts. Since I did not
have my usual tower trailer set up (impending roofing job coming) I only had
my attic 6M Squalo antenna to work with.

Holy Cow !  Things were really lit up...CW, SSB, FT8, & FT4 stations from
all directions being captured by that 6M omni-antenna.
 
I started off on FT8 making a few contacts. THEN I paid closer attention to
all the DN, DM, DL, EN, EM, EL, and FN grids calling CQ  in my decode list
scrolling. My FT8 waterfall was solid signals all the way up through 2800.
I began answering some of these distant stations with a moderate 300 watts
to the Squalo in the attic and could not believe I was working them so
easily, AND what great signal reports they were giving me ! 
I could have gone to 600 watts but anything over 300 watts to the attic
antenna causes the display panels on our Washer and Dryer to go nuts, things
turning on and off, etc !

It occurred to me that this might be a great and rare opportunity to add to
my VUCC grid totals on 6M, especially since I had no way of knowing how long
this 6M opening might last.  
So watching the WSJTX color highlights of the "CQ" decodes I began ignoring
most of the Blue decodes (New Station), especially locals,  and instead I
focused on working the Brown decodes (New Grid) since they just kept coming
and coming.
The band kept changing and was wild....for about 30 minutes I would see CNs,
DNs, and DMs coming through.....and I had no problem working them if they
were at least a -18 or -20. Then the band would shift and suddenly I was
working ENs and FNs. Next came a period of DLs, ELs, FLs with some Central
American and Caribbean calls mixed in. These cycles just kept repeating all
Sunday afternoon into the evening. 
That's the fun part of having an omni-directional antenna when the "Magic
Band"  REALLY opens for an extended time and you find yourself working all
these single and double hop stations without changing the antenna direction.

So by the end of the contest I had been on the air for about 13 hours.
I ended up worked 39 FT4 Qs and 128 FT8 Qs for a total of 167 Qs.... and 116
Grids !  ....for a score of 19,372.  Not bad for "casual" operating on just
one band.
 
Using that attic Squalo I'm now up to 240 grids on 6M !

What a blast 6M provided for all of us this June contest .......

Ron
WW8RR

-----Original Message-----
From: Fourlanders
[mailto:fourlanders-bounces+ww8rr=charter.net at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Ron Rogers
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2022 8:32 AM
To: 'w4atl shermanbanks.net'; fourlanders at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] June VHF Contest

Really great score, Sherman.

Looks like you were REAL busy. With 600+ Qs in the log did you ever leave
your chair ?

Ron
WW8RR


-----Original Message-----
From: Fourlanders
[mailto:fourlanders-bounces+ww8rr=charter.net at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
w4atl shermanbanks.net
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2022 5:53 AM
To: fourlanders at contesting.com
Subject: [Fourlanders] June VHF Contest

Well that sure was a busy contest. Looks like scores are up for 
everyone. I was in the 65K range for the last 2 contests. It was nice to 
see some analog activity return to the contest.


Contest: ARRLVHFJUN
  Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
     50  CW     112     112   30   1.0
     50  FT4     58      58   16   1.0
     50  FT8    153     153   87   1.0
     50  MSK1     8       8    7   1.0
     50  USB    246     246   60   1.0
    144  FT8     34      34   21   1.0
    144  MSK1     2       2    2   1.0
    144  USB      5       5    1   1.0
    420  FM       1       2    0   2.0
    420  FT8      1       2    1   2.0
    420  USB      2       4    2   2.0
  Total  Both   622     626  227   1.0
Score: 142,102
1 Mult = 2.7 Q's

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Sent to: ww8rr at charter.net