Another June VHF
contest came and went. I decided that this would be my last year doing it from Blood Mountain
at 4460’ because it is too far to hike. I am looking to team up next year with
some friends and find a more comfortable location we can drive to.
I had several
goals to accomplish for this year: Make more contacts, especially on 6m; to
spend the entire contest on the mountain; reduce my pack weight to less than
50Lbs from about 70Lbs last year; and get a better antenna for 6m.
I did all of these
things except I ended up packing up right after lunch on Sunday due to the
pop-up thunder storms. Something about being the highest thing in the area with
a metal pole 25 feet in the air next to me didn’t make me feel all that
comfortable.
The first 3 hours
of the contest I kept pretty busy working people and switching between bands to
work each contact on the 4 bands I could for FM (6m, 2m, 220Mhz, 440Mhz). After
that it started to slow down a bit and I was able to take a break for dinner.
Dinner was a pouch of soup warmed up on nearby rocks and rice. After dinner the
QSO rate slowed down to about 10 per hour. Just before bed I made contact with
the contest group of AA4ZZ in Boone,
NC - EM96, a new grid for me on
2m so I was happy to get that extra multiplier before bed.
Last year when I
woke up Sunday morning there was some great tropo ducting down to the South on
2m and I was able to work into Florida.
This year I did not have anything when I checked the aprs maps. I did seem to
have some enhancement but not anything stellar. Then Bryan, W3CP told me around 8am to look east.
Slowly some enhancement started to show up. Before long I was working contacts
much further east of me into the Myrtle
Beach area. That ended up lasting about an hour or so
then dissipated. About that time I was turning my beam by hand up toward the NE
and heard someone announce a 5 call sign and said Boston on 6FM… I thought did I hear that
right? KD5JR answered my call and confirmed he was NW of Boston just as clear
as if I was talking to my friend across town. Wow.
We talked for a
minute or two then I decided to see who else was out there. In the next 45
minutes I worked stations in FN42, FN33, FN31 and FN24. All about 900 mile
contacts on 6 meter FM! This was also my first time I have talked that far on
6m FM so it was a real high note to end the morning on.
Overall I was very
pleased with how long my batteries lasted, the performance of the antennas and
the radios. I put a lot of planning into the trip and it was easier this time
to make the hike up the mountain with less weight.
Here are my
abbreviated results
Total
Contacts = 179
Total Points
= 7,326
Total Contacts by
Band and Mode
Band CW
Phone Dig Total %
----
-- ----- --- -----
---
6
0 34
0 34 19
2 0
102 0
102 57
1.25
0 9
0
9 5
70 0
34 0
34 19
-- ----- ---
----- ---
Total 0
179 0
179 100
Total Contacts by
Grid:
Grid
Total %
---------
----- ---
EM74
68 38
EM84
49 27
EM73
22 12
EM75
11 6
EM85
8 4
EM83
6 3
EM93
2 1
FM04
2 1
FN42
2 1
EM65
1 1
EM76
1 1
EM82
1 1
EM94
1 1
EM95
1 1
EM96
1 1
FN24
1
1
FN31
1 1
FN33
1 1
Total = 18
If you are
interested in photos of this year, you can find them here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskBUvfFD
Ryan
KK4OSG