[Fourlanders] W4NH September VHF Contest Summary

[Bob Lear]

Operators for the contest were Brian NX9O, Kim WG8S, Bill KI4US, Jerry 
W5TDY, Brad KM4QHI, Ron WW8RR, Kos N4SDK, Bob K4VBM, Jim W4KXY and Bob 
W4ZST.   We met at Roosters as usual on Saturday and six of us enjoyed 
our traditional lunch there.   We had visitors: Anna N9KHC, Mike KC4RI, 
Mike KO4MIK and David KQ4GHK.  The visitors were here for Saturday 
afternoon and dinner.  Several friends who had planned to come visit 
ended up having to cancel due to other obligations and we did miss them.

Bill stayed three nights, Kim two, Kos, Bob and Ron one night.   Brad 
and Jerry commuted.

Jerry's meals were great as usual.  Here is the menu that we all enjoyed 
so much.
Saturday: Smoked Beef Brisket, Smoked Kielbasa Sausage,  Pinto Beans, 
Cole Slaw and Texas Toast
Sunday Breakfast: Egg Casserole - Hash brown crust, Eggs & Cheese, 
Sausage Patties, Biscuits and Donuts
Lunch: Hamburgers, Chips, Left over Cole slaw and pickles
Dinner: Brisket Quesadillas, beans, slaw and chips

and there were leftovers to share to take home on Monday.  All the food 
was fantastic.  Thanks again as usual Jerry for feeding us so fine.  I"m 
writing the on Thursday and have had great lunches from the leftovers 
all this week.

Here is our score summary.  Bill has submitted our entry to ARRL and I 
have posted on 3830.  There has been some grumbling about conditions 
around the country so maybe we will come out all right with the lower 
than expected score.



The moon came up at 3 AM and and I got up then to get the EME stations 
on.  Ron was doing good on 6m Meteor Scatter.  I made no Q's on 144 or 
432 EME.  Did not seem to be computer problems this time.  I only say 
one trace from a big gun station on 432 and never saw a trace or decode 
on 2m.   Later on Sunday, we found that the reflock on the 432 
transverter seemed to have quit on us.  We operated FT8 there some on 
crystal control after we found how far off frequency we were.  I prepped 
another 432 transverter that needed some mods to use and when we got 
that on line 432 was back to normal.  No idea yet why we had problems on 
2m.  The 2m station was used before and after on FT8 with no issues
.
We also saw on Friday that the Bip-Bop Box for 6m antennas was not 
working.  Eventually we traced the problem to the Arduino board 
failing.  We replaced it with an plug-in Arduino Uno and Bill did some 
changes to the program code to make the new Uno board work with the set 
up.  No problems during the contest with 6m station and a number of Q's 
were made into Mexico, Cuba and South America.

But we did have some recurring problems with N1MM logging program.  
Turned out there were some networking bugs in the latest release and we 
installed an earlier version on all 5 station computers that finally 
solved the problem but that was on Sunday.  No Q's were lost but we sure 
spent a lot of time rebooting the computers.  That takes time because we 
have so many programs running on them and as many at 13 windows open so 
all have to be closed to reboot and start over.  Not fun but we got by.

Thanks to all who worked us, operated, came to visit and otherwise 
supported the Fourlanders

73, Bob W4ZST
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