[SCCC] N6MI (IARU report, July 13)

[J. Scott Bovitz <bovitz@bovitz.com>]

On July 19-20, 2024, Paul (W6PNG, nomadic.blog) and Scott (N6MI, n6mi.com) operated in the IARU HF World Championship as N6MI (the call). We operated in the Los Padres National Forest in the N6MI ham radio van and took turns resting in Paul's tricked out Jeep. Our QTH was Frazier Peak, Ventura County, California (grid square DM04ms). We powered the station with a Honda generator, Field Day style. It burns about 4.5 gallons of gas in 24 hours.

We used the Yaesu FTdx101D and an Acom amplifier (500 watts). We fed a tri-band JK antenna on 10/15/20 meters at 60 feet. JK makes an easy antenna to transport and assemble on the roof of the van. We used inverted vees on 40/80 meters. 

Radio conditions were excellent (10.7 cm flux at 205, A index 5, K index 2) on the low bands. It was crowded -- hard to maintain a frequency for calling CQ with our setup -- but we could hear and work signals from all over the globe. 

The weather (at 8,013 feet) was in the low 80s in the day and about 60 at night. We watched a few thunderstorms build over the mountain, but very little rain hit the ground. There was a little lightning one mountain range over, but no thunder was heard. 

Before log checking, we worked 850 stations, with 95 IARU zone multipliers and 66 headquarters stations: 21 stations on 80; 54 stations on 40; 426 stations on 20; 262 stations on 15; 87 stations on 10. We worked more CW contacts (634) than USB contacts (216). It was easier to break the CW pileups than the USB pileups when conditions are this good. 20 opened in the afternoon and stayed open all night. 15 meters did not perform as well as it did on Field Day -- though we had a better antenna (a six element yagi) on 15 meters in June. 10 meters acted like 6 meters -- random propagation. Thanks for the contacts.

On Saturday, after the contest ended, two SOTA operators, Ara (N6ARA, n6ara.com) and Mark (search for You Tube videos by KD7DTS), dropped by to tour the van and make their SOTA contacts to "activate" Frazier Peak (W6/CC-003). Apparently, they were not allowed to just hook up a coax to the tri-bander at 60 feet for the SOTA activation. For the hospitality, N6ARA gave me a present -- a custom micro paddle for CW use. Nice! 

73,

J. Scott Bovitz
N6MI
bovitz at bovitz.com