All,

The June VHF contest is almost here. It runs from 1800 UTC Saturday June 13. 2020 to 0259 UTC Monday , June 15, 2020. Usually the Four Landers VHF/UHF Group would be up in North Carolina at Mile High Campground for this contest. Thanks to COVID-19 that isn't going to happened this year. Instead we will all be operating from home using our own calls and our own stations. We will be participating in the Club competition and so far 26 Fourlanders have signed up to contribute to the Club score.

If you have a radio made after about 1990 it has 6 meters on it. This contest brings out a number of stations and this will be a great opportunity to get on 6m. And above.

if all you have is FM we really need to get on and work this contest. One of the participating station belongs to Ryan Kovacs , WG4I. Ryan will be operating from Rabun Bald, EM84ix FM only on four bands. Ryan's goal is to win the FM only category for the Southeast Region. Please help Ryan reach his goal. Here is his message:

The June VHF contest (http://www.arrl.org/june-vhf) is just around the corner (June 13^th – 15^th) and this year I will be camping out on Rabun Bald in Rabun Co. (EM84ix) 8 miles North-East of Clayton, GA at an elevation of 4700’. I will be operating in the Single Operator FM only category on 6m, 2m, 1.25m, and 70cm with between 5watts and 50 watts and directional antennas for all bands using a ft-8900 and an Alinco radio for the 220 band. All radios will be powered from batteries. Contest starts at 2pm Saturday and runs through 10:59pm Sunday. This is usually the biggest VHF contest of the year and although most contesters are on SSB you will find some activity on FM.
Looking at the Hey whats that profile: https://www.heywhatsthat.com/?view=QDXR8PB3 I will have some coverage into NE Metro Atlanta area and along North I-85. I won’t be as close to Atlanta as I have been in the past at Blood Mountain so you may have to break out the beams to make contact with me or drive to a high spot. I will be on the following frequencies (first one listed is the calling freq for that band):
52.525, 52.54
146.52, 146.49, 146.55
223.5
446.0, 446.5
FM mode and moving to secondary frequencies when QRM is present.
Exchange needed: Call, Grid square, and signal report. You can determine your grid square by going to QRZ and look at your profile and the detail tab.
Text me if you want to setup a schedule during the contest @ 404-831-9861

Here is a photo of what the antenna stack will look like. Still working on the spacing so this isn’t final yet.

For those doing SOTA, this would be a great weekend to get out and activate some summits and make a S2S with me!

VHF contesting is a little different than HF contesting in that you can use multiple methods to set up contacts - chat rooms, skeds, cellphones, emails, etc.

On a personal note, with all of IC-9700's out there I am wondering if we could make a bigger effort on 1296. I am good to the south and east and a bit to the west. I have two 1296 20 element loops I can loan out if that would help get some more folks on 1296. If interest please respond directly to johnnykludt@gmail.com

So, let's all get on for the contest. Another opportunity to play radio as we slowly emerge from shelter-in-place.

Johnny K4SQC