[Fourlanders] W4ZST ARRL 2024 EME Contest Summary

[Bob Lear]

I sent out a summary of the problems and results of the first weekend of 
the EME contest back on October 22.  If anyone getting this summary 
didn't see the first one just let me know and I can forward that to 
you.  Now the final weekend results.

Bill KI4US and Kim WG8S came again to operate the contest with me, Bob 
W4ZST.  We went to Roosters on Friday evening for dinner since the 
contest didn't start until 7PM.  We went to Lunch Bunch with the 
Cleveland club on Saturday at Creekside Deli as the moon went down about 
8AM.  We grabbed a short nap before lunch and more after.  We went to 
North GA BBQ in Dahlonega for Saturday night before our moonrise time 
for the contest.  Then Sunday morning we went to the Waffle House for 
breakfast and Bill and Kim hit the roads for home from there.  We are 
upholding the Fourlanders usual 'Never Hungry' tradition.  I got some 
more much needed sleep later Sunday morning and afternoon.  I am feeling 
my age for sure.  Getting hard to stay up long enough for the all-nighters.

I had managed to replace the problem 2m power divider and get the 2m 
preamp repaired in the week before the contest.  Some strong young guys 
here to plan a carport were nice enough to put the scaffolding up for 
me.  I did do the climbing and replacement of the PD and preamp, tested 
phasing lines again with my analyzer both up on the scaffolding and back 
from the shack.  Everything looking good so I tried transmitting and was 
OK with 1500W on both H and V and the preamp was working so all was well 
with 2m and I had no problem during this second contest weekend.  Kim 
and Bill helped me take the scaffolding down on Friday afternoon.

Likewise the 222 station had no problems and we were pleasantly 
surprised at the good activity on the last pass to pick up 7 more Q's 
there.  Kim did operate the 222 station this time and enjoyed his first 
EME Q's.  Ten QSO's on 222 during the EME contest is probably the best 
we have ever done.  One year there were only two! But one of the 222 
active guys suggested that we get on for the last pass of the contest 
and it was a good turnout.  No new states or grids for me though but 
always happy to have that kind of activity on the great 222 band.

Not without further problems from our full time resident Murphy. This 
time it was the 432 Lunar Link that went out in the wee hours of Sunday 
morning.  Bill and I were still operating, he on 432 and me on 144.  
Lost output on 432.  Blew fuses in the power supply. Replaced the fuses 
and promptly blew them again so decided that it must be the amp and 
likely couldn't do anything at the time.  I reconfigured and put the 432 
W6PQL solid state amp in line on 432 and it seemed to work fine and put 
out almost the same as we had been running, 750W.  This was the same 
thing we had to do on 144 the first weekend.  Bill did notice that the 
PQL was getting hot and a couple of times shut down on High temp 
protection that it has,  I dug out an old tube amp blower that had a 
short piece of hose on it that had been around here for years.  In our 
best engineering tradition, we TieWrapped it to a support post behind 
the amp and directed the hose to the fan assembly in the back of the 
amp.  That worked just fine, brought the amp temp down and we continued 
on.  I finally couldn't even see my monitor screen with my bleary eyes 
and left to get some shut-eye.  Of course Murphy was still around and 
decided to kill the run capacitor on the blower.  So Bill shut down and 
came in to get some sleep time also.  We did get up early and come back 
out to get the last half hour or so of the contest before the antennas 
were looking into the trees to the West.  I could not find a suitable 
replacement capacitor for the blower and we were in the trees by that 
time so we shut down.  After the contest I started troubleshooting the 
problem and it turned out to be the same as we had the month before with 
the 2m station.  Only this time instead of the relay contacts no longer 
making good contact, these contacts were totally blackened and melted 
together.  Another relay bites the dust here!!  I had been thinking 
about putting all these smoked relays and preamps up on a wall of shame 
but I guess here it should be 'The Wall of Flame'.  I have another one 
of the relays and 432 will be back on the air.  I haven't tested the amp 
but I do feel that the relay was the only problem, (other than the 
system designer and chief engineer in residence here)!.

Final results were not exciting.  I don't think we'll even be in the top 
ten with this showing:

Band    Mode    Q's    Points    Grid Mults
144      JT65      50      5000      49
222      Q65      10      1000      10
432      Q65      29      2900      27
Tot                    89      8900      86
for 765,400 points       (We had 700,000 last year but the mults are 
different this year and I think unfortunately we won't be in the running)

I did get a few new initial contacts (first time worked) on 144 and 
432.  We wish Brian NX9O could have been here to get us on 1296 EME as I 
saw many ops there posting over 100 Q's per moon pass!  It certainly is 
the most popular and active band these days.  Maybe I'll finally get my 
own gear on 1296 before next years ARRL contest.  Just need to get the 
dish on a mount and in the air, something that I just keep putting off.

Next up is the January VHF contest on the 18th - 20th and we will do 
that contest here as W4NH as usual.

73, Bob W4ZST