[SCCC] January VHF - N7DA

[Drew Arnett]

A whopping 1344 points for SCCC.  :-)

Focused on the 2026 SOTA challenge.  Didn't even chase FM.

Saturday was on W6/SC-368 with 1200 HT, UKR transverters for 432 (2W)
and 144 (13 W), and 222 HT.  Whips for 222 and 1200.  4 el on 2m, 5 el
on 432.

Out of the 40 QSOs from the summit, 15 were S2S (summit to summit).
Lots of the usual SOTA chasers.  And even non SOTA folks most all had
6 character grids ready.

Stations up by Barstow/Victorville participating in the SOTA campout
were worked even though the path is straight over Gorgonio.  I guess
that chops 2 out of the 10 miles of troposphere for troposcatter, so
that would be what, 1 dB loss vs prairie?  Station with me with FT-817
and a turnstile antenna (less gain than a dipole, lol) was able to
work them easily as well.  This wasn't really stretching the range of
these low power 2m weak signal setups.

Sunday operated from a couple of parks on the two sides of my
neighborhood mountain, mostly to chase SOTA ops.

A bit amusing trying to get a log into shape to turn in to the ARRL.
Their categories are hard to fit to the way a lot of folks would play
during the VHF test.

The SOTA 2/70 ssb/cw activity has been good the first 3 weekends of
the year and will continue.  Folks are really getting a kick out of
it.  It's nice to have the easy CW contacts when we can't hear
anything on FM.

points tally:  84
144:  DM03 DM04 DM12 DM13 DM14 DM15
1200:  DM12 DM13
430:  DM03 DM04 DM12 DM13 DM14
223:  DM12
roved 2 grids
total mults:  16
final score:  1344

Thanks to the SCCC folks who got on during the contest!

Best regards,

Drew
n7da