[Fourlanders] January 2023 VHF contest summary

[Bob Lear]

At the beginning things were slow and we thought we were going to be 
disappointed.  But it did pick up.  Ron WW8RR and Bob K4VBM stayed up 
for early Sunday morning to take advantage of Meteor Scatter and got 
several new grids for multipliers.  Turned out that we set a new record 
score for January from EM84 besting our last years score by 10k or so.  
Bill has sent the logs in to ARRL and I've posted on 3830.  I don't want 
to jinx us but we are in FIRST place multi on 3830.
Interesting that there was some chatter on the Fourlanders reflector 
this past week with some of those ops reminiscing about the First Place 
finish of the Fourlanders for the September contest in 1986 from Mt. 
Toxaway in NC.  One of the ops from then had found a picture taken at 
the contest.   They were full Multi-Op and used Steve Adams (SK) call 
WS4F then as we didn't get the W4NH club call until 1996.  Many of them 
are still around and active, just not with the Fourlanders now.  
Congrats again to them and we hope our score holds up for this contest.  
We did not do any EME this time as it was new moon and conditions were 
predicted to not be good.



Operators for the contest were Brian NX9O, Kim WG8S, Bill KI4US, Bob 
K4VBM, Jerry W5TDY, Brad KM4QHI, Ron WW8RR, Kos N4SDK, and Bob 
W4ZST.     We had visitors: Frank K4SJR and Ricky from Jasper and Mike 
Stipick KC4RI .  We did meet at Roosters for lunch on Saturday and I 
think nine of us were there carrying on our tradition.

Once again, Jerry W5TDY, our master cook has fed us (and spoiled us) 
royally.  Here is Jerry's menu.

That Southern Fried Cabbage had bacon, two kinds of sausage, shrimp and 
more stuff.  It was outstanding.  There was enough leftover for our 
Sunday night dinner and lunch on Monday.   And I think some leftovers 
were taken home then!

Brian stayed four nights, Bill and Bob stayed three, Kim two, Kos and 
Jerry one night. Brad commuted and Ron napped! Brian came early to help 
me and also to work on his new 1296 portable EME setup. Bill and Bob 
came Friday and did all the software updates and computer work. All 
helped me get the microwave antennas up in the air. I had assembled them 
in the driveway but needed help to get them on one of the tower trailer 
masts. New for this contest were two 33 el loopers on 902, our usual two 
45 el loopers on 1296 and one 76 el looper on 2304. Unfortunately I 
couldn't get the 902 transverter working well nor a couple of 2304's 
that I tried. Didn't hear of anyone on 2304 to try with. 1296 was good 
though with Q's of 300, 210 and 74 miles along with a couple of locals. 
I tried with a couple more but couldn't make it. Brian did a terrain 
analysis and there were much too high mountains on those paths it turned 
out. I need to spend more time on those transverters in future (well 
before the contest time!!) We didn't have many equipment problems but 
Murphy came to visit late Sunday afternoon. The power was dropping on 
the 6m Commander. I went to check it and the cabinet was too hot to put 
a hand on! Seems that we had been running it a little too high on 
digital. Also the blower seemed to be slow. I've not found the problem 
yet but he blower seems OK although I don't know what it would do if it 
got hot. Possibly a bad filter cap according to my amp gurus who I have 
called. Still working on that. We put one of the club Harris Channel 2 
TV amps on then that I had mostly ready with relays and filter, etc. 
Later Sunday evening it also quit on us. Haven't even looked at that one 
yet. And my 6m Beko that went out after the Sept contest still hasn't 
had the output relay replaced. Just can't get any good help around 
here!! There may be more stuff around here now that needs repairing and 
stuff that works!! That is all I can remember. Sorry for waiting almost 
two weeks to get this out. I've had Dr appts and we had the two 
granddaughters for last weekend and have kept the 1 1/2 year old one 
this week too while her parents move. Wearing us out for sure. Put the 
June contest on your calendars. As of now we will be here again for it 
unless someone can come up with a new portable site. Thanks to all the 
operators and friends who worked us in the contest. 73, Bob W4ZST
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