[SECC] ARRL VHF contest

[Andrew Goss]

Had a great time this weekend, especially on Sunday when 6 meters opened up to the Acela corridor (plus Ontario and for shorter period, the Midwest). I made my first 6M contact only three months ago, and two weeks ago got a Moxon antenna installed at 25 feet. Until this weekend all my contacts have been FT8, running 70 watts, and until I got the Moxon installed, into my 160M inverted L.

I had lots of other family obligations, especially Saturday, but on Sunday, I was able to run on CW for almost three hours. My LP effort had much less success on SSB. Made my first meteor scatter contacts Sunday morning, which was fun. 

Since getting back on the air a year ago, I've worked a lot of FT8, mostly chasing DX. I haven't found contesting with FT8 very satisfying, at least on HF--very slow and if the station your in a QSO with gets swamped by a stronger signal, it's hard to tell if it's a completed QSO. But I did use it productively this weekend, especially during slack periods, and for the local QSOs. Still only got one EM73 QSO. Not sure if trying to figure out a 2M setup would help my score much, as there aren't many VHF enthusiasts around Augusta. 

6M: 288 QSOs, 106 Grids    CW: 182    SSB: 12    FT8: 92    MSK144: 2
Andrew Goss -- AA5JF
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