W4NH - June 2018 VHF Contest
Summary
We had decided at our yearly January meeting to not make the trip
to the mountain for this contest and do the June contest from the
W4ZST QTH in EM84ao. That helped me out as antennas were still in
the air from January and a couple of the stations still set up.
With only a couple of workdays we got it all ready over a week
before the contest. We now have done the past FOUR year's June
contests here in GA.
Usually the problem is trailer pullers and one time we couldn't
get our reservations in time. We recently learned that will be
the situation next June as someone got our sites reserved before
we had our chance. Continuing to look at alternative locations to
try for the June contest next year. Any suggestions appreciated.
We had also decided to go ahead and change over to the N1MM
logging program from WriteLog, where we had continued to have
problems. Thanks to those Ron, Jim, Johnny and Bill who came and
helped out with testing the new logging software a couple of times
a month before the contest where we learned the new program and
tested it on live stations with all the contest computers. As
usual, Murphy showed up for the contest and even though we had
everything working well during the week before the contest, it
didn't stay that way. We also had significant radio problems this
time that usually aren't a problem. Apparently a Voltage
Regulator went out on Johnny's Flex 6600 in the 6m station which
made us scramble to get a back up station on the air. I did
manage to get a Yaesu 920 on the air on 6m with the amp but not
fully functional with the software. We have learned some lessons
during this contest about needing back up equipment tested and at
least partially set up to be able to put in service quickly. We
missed some band openings on 6m because of this. We were also off
the air on 2m for about 10 hours as something happened to the 2m
station during a power-line glitch that occurred after the
thunderstorm. We hadn't thought to run the Flex 1500 SDR radio on
a UPS but maybe that would have helped. I had problems getting
another FT-920 working with the transverter on 2m and we were off
2m from about 10PM until 9 AM on Sunday morning and again, I
couldn't get it all working properly with N1MM. I had not tried
that combination before and this points to the need for tested
back-up systems. In retrospect, we probably should have taken Kos
up on his offer of letting us use his usual 2m contest station
even though he was not going to be able to make the contest.
As usual, when 6m is open it really hurts the higher bands as
everyone is trying to cash in on 6m and 6 was open for most of the
contest. We did make some FT8 Q's on 6m but there were stations
that didn't have contest mode selected and also seemed to not yet
be experienced enough with FT8 to know how to make Q's up and down
the waterfall. Much traffic on the reflectors about this after
the contest. Less than 10% of our 6m Q's this time were FT8.
Only one MSK-144 QSO overnight. I think the problem here is the
bandwidth of the 920 is lacking. Wish we had had the Flex on for
that as it probably would have meant more QSO's. Even though EME
conditions were not good, we did make some Q's. 3 on 2m and 2 on
432. We also did for sure copy our own echoes off the moon on
222, but no Q's there. This was the first time we had Az-El and
cross-pol antennas on 222. We will continue to try here. Thanks
to Johnny pushing for 222 EME and for assembling the antennas and
helping me set them up and to Brian for supplying them. I just
took my 432 EME relay box and put a 222 preamp in it for using
with the 222 station.
Here is the submitted score summary.
I don't think we'll make the top ten in multi-op with this score.
BAND QSO's Grids
6m 185 83
2m 25 12
222 10 7
432 16 12
1296 1 1
Totals 237 117 for 32,520 points.
Operators for the contest were: Johnny Kludt K4SQC, Bob Lear
W4ZST, Brian McCarthy NX9O, Ron Rogers WW8RR, the band captains
for 6, 2, 222, & 432 and operators Kim Hensley WG8S, Bill
Pence KI4US, and Jim Worsham W4KXY. We were very pleased that
Brian NX9O got to come for the contest and operate his 222 station
as he has not been able to for several contests. Jerry Long W5TDY
cooked us a great dinner Saturday night but didn't come in to
operate. Kos Kosmetatos N4NIA, our usual 2m band captain did get
to come to lunch and visit for a few hours on Saturday. Several
new Fourlanders joined us for this contest: Rich St.John KX4KD
from the Cleveland club, Richard McCrory KF1SH from Waynesville
NC, Bob Hensey K4VBM from Peachtree Corners. Richard had tried to
visit with us last September on the mountain but missed us on
Sunday as we were forced to leave early because of the hurricane.
He met up with Paul W4SKI who was still there and learned more
about us. He also visited here the weekend before the contest.
Bob Hensey has been here before and used to work with Jim at
ATT&T. HS student and computer whiz Carter Bailey KN4DLY from
the Cleveland club also stayed overnight. Much software and
hardware issues were discussed between the regulars and Carter.
Carter's Dad Craig Bailey KN4DLS, Mike Stipick KC4RI from Atlanta,
Russ Duteau K4WQS from the Dahlonega club, Vince Pardinas W4VDP
and wife Athey from Cumming and Ashton Locher KJ4AMA and Curt
Garnto W4DPM from the Cleveland club all got to visit. Kevin
K4GTR and Bob AB4VT who operated portable from Chestatee Overlook
just a few miles north of us, stopped by on their way home
Saturday evening to visit for a time. I think I got everyone who
visited but someone could have sneaked in with all this crowd and
mayhem and I might have missed them. My apologies if I did. We
had 9 ops staying Saturday night.
Two new contest stations were put on the air for this contest:
Six meters used Johnny's new Flex 6600 complete with three 22"
monitors (very impressive looking) and Jim's new M2 6m-1000 Solid
State amp with the stacked pair of 5 element beams and M2 HO loop
omni's; The 2m station this time was Johnny's 2m EME station, Flex
1500, DEMI 2m transverter and M2 2m1K2 amp which we connected to
the usual stacked pair of 9 element beams along with the 144 "beam
omni's". For 2m EME we connected the pair of M2 20 element
dual-polarity beams with Az-El; 222 was Brian's usual station
with an FT-1000MP, DEMI 222 transverter and Lunar Link amp this
time with a pair of M2 222XP30 cross-pol beams with Az-El; and 432
was Ron's station with his IC-910, HB K2RIW amp and a four-square
of K2RIW 432 beams with Az-EL along with the 432 "omni beams".
For 1296, Ron loaned me his spare IC-910 which ran barefoot with
the pair of 45 element loop yagi's. Only made one Q but tried
with several. Could have been the new growth leaves on the trees
around that kept us from making more Q's there. The antennas were
not particularly high. Ron and I had tested a SK sale 1296 amp
that was here but couldn't get it on the air. As mentioned above,
after the problems with 6 and 2m stations, I substituted FT-920's
as they were my only radios ready and for 2m with transverter
connections. The 920's have been on for various contests on all
bands from 6 thru 432, but had not been set up with N1MM and had
not been tried with new modes like MSK-144. There is a known
bandwith problem with them but they were the only thing I could
set up on short notice.
As usual we ate well, again starting at Rooster's in Dahlonega
where 10 of us met up for lunch before the contest on Saturday.
Saturday night dinner was another feast provided by Jerry W5TDY.
He smoked Boston Butts, brought a pot of Greek Green Beans, smoked
sausage, home-made cole slaw and his famous bacon-wrapped, cream
cheese stuffed, smoked Jalopena peppers. Special thanks to Jerry
for another great contest meal. We had scrambled eggs, biscuits
and sausage for breakfast on Sunday and ham/turkey/cheese
sandwiches and chips for lunch. For the few of us left Sunday
evening, we worked on the left-overs. There were three of us who
stayed to the bitter end at 11PM. 6m was still open and I made
some Q's but would have done better if I had the computer
connections working to allow calling CQ rather than search and
pounce. The band was still open and crowded.
Thanks to all who participated and we hope all enjoyed operating,
eating and just hanging out with us for the contest.
Put the September contest dates on your calendar, September 8th
and 9th. Again this is one of those years when the contest is
only 1 week after Shelby. We do have our reservations for this
one. Let's just hope we don't have another situation where we just
can't get a large enough group together to make the trip and pull
all the trailers. We do also have our reservations for
September 2019 but as mentioned, we won't be able to go there for
June 2019.
Thanks and 73, Bob
PS, Johnny has sent the Flex 6600 in for repair under warranty,
but is pretty sure it's just a Voltage Regulator. But with an
expensive radio like that, seeing it go down and not come back and
later releasing the 'magic smoke' is not a good feeling. As to
the Flex 1500 problem, I've been troubleshooting and I don't think
it's a major problem or will it have to go in for repair. It
appears to be something external and I'm still working on it but
fortunately NOT thinking of having to kiss it goodbye.
Also special thanks to Rick Woodard KK4LPP who came up for the
workday the weekend before the contest and did the long overdue
oil and filter change on the generator even though we weren't
using it for the contest but for the NFARL club to use for Field
Day. He had another commitment and missed the contest. We also
had Rich KX4KD, Johnny K4SQC, Ron WW8RR and myself here for that
workday. Ron and Johnny were mostly doing computer setup work and
Rich helped me a lot with getting the new 222 EME/contest antennas
in the air for the contest along with some other FD prep work.