[VHFcontesting] Better late than never, K9ZF/R June VHF recap

[Dan Evans]

Wow what a contest!

Over the past couple of years, the K9ZF /R station has gone through some 
pretty major changes.  New truck, new rigs, new amps, same old op...

I spent a few weeks before the contest getting the amps and FT897D 
mounted in the truck and trying to work out bugs. 

It was a lot of work, but everything was coming together nicely by 
contest time. 

The bricks for 2m and 432 were mounted behind the front seats.  Within 
reach, but in an out of the way spot.

The rotor control box was left in the back seat.  I can reach behind me 
and turn the antennas.  I would prefer it up front, but the cable is too 
short and not enough time left to fix it.  This will have to go on the 
to do list for the next contest.

The sound card interface and rig control cable was finished, and 
attached.  However, I couldn't seem to get it configured with RoverLog 
in time for the contest.   Another item for the next to do list and back 
to calling CQ manually....  USB only laptops are a pain.

I put together a set of "racks" on the back of the truck using good ol' 
2x4's.  Doesn't look as good as a set of commercial ladder racks, but 
will work fine for this contest.

The AR40 rotator is mounted in the bed of the truck and working fine.

The push up mast is still in good shape, and mounted back in the rotor, 
and braced at about the 4' level by the new racks.

So on Saturday morning, everything is looking good.  All I have left to 
do is mount the antennas, run the feed lines, and initial testing.  I'm 
hoping Paul, N1BUG, is keeping Murphy busy for this contest as 
everything has gone so well:-)  The first up on the mast is my trusty 
old Cushcraft 10 element 2 meter yagi.  It's a veteran of many years of 
Roving and is beat and battered, but keeps on ticking.  I got it mounted 
and cabled, and it checked out fine.  Next up was the antenna I was most 
concerned about.  This one is a "new" M2, 432 yagi.  It has lots of 
elements on about a 12' boom.  I traded for it last winter, but as yet 
had not tested it.  I got it mounted and ran the feed line, about 25' of 
LMR400.  Anyway, as I had hoped, I put it up and it worked great. The 
previous owner told me this antenna had seen little use, but I don't 
think it had ever seen RF before.  At least it looked new:-)   Lastly, 
was my trusty old Par Moxon for 6 meters.  The Moxon goes up, the cable 
is run, and then Murphy strikes!   The SWR test at around 7:1!!!   Holy 
cow!  What happened?  It worked fine last September.

So, I have two hours left before the contest and a major problem to work 
out.   I go back over all the connections, and every inch of the 
antenna.  No help.  I drag out my trusty little homebrew dummy load to 
test the feed line hoping it may be the coax.  But the coax tests 
fine...   Hmmmm, still trying to solve the mystery I try removing the 
little black box at the feed point.  All of the moxons I have homebrewed 
have been fed directly with 50 ohm line so I'm hoping that if this 
"balun" is bad, I can feed it direct and use a coax choke.  But that 
didn't help either.  By now I'm getting pretty frustrated.  Nothing is 
visibly wrong with the antenna and removing the balun didn't help.   
Suspecting a bad connection between the square stock and the round 
tubing joints, I put a couple of sheet metal screws through the joints 
to secure them, but still no help....  By this time, it's an hour into 
the contest, and I still don't have a 6 meter antenna.  To make matters 
worse, during all the testing I can hear booming e-skip from everywhere, 
arrrggg!

So, giving up on the moxon I check the junk pile.  Oddly enough my junk 
pile is made up of more 6 meter antennas then anything else, it's a real 
6 meter grave yard at my place.  I toss a couple of homebrew antennas 
out as being to far gone to easily repair.   I test an old homebrew 
halo, but the gamma match is battered, and to far gone to easily fix.  
Then I come across another homebrew monster of mine.  It's a 5 element 
yagi I made with spare parts from other antennas.  This antenna works 
great, but it always seemed to fragile to me, so I never put it up.   
But now it seems like my last hope.  It's way too big to use on the 
Rover, but if I separate the boom in front of the driven element that 
will leave me just a two element yagi that might just work if I mount it 
90 degrees off from the rest of the stack.  So I take the big homebrew 
apart and mount the first two elements on the mast, hook up the 
feedline, and FINALLY, I have a working 6 meter antenna.  The SWR is 
nearly flat, and it seems to be pretty directional.  Time to roll.

It's now nearly 4 hours into the contest and I regret planning my route 
to start in the most distant grid.   So I have a choice to make.  Either 
I can ditch my whole plan and start out close to home, or I can scratch 
my first planned grid and start in my "second" planned grid.   I chose 
to skip the first grid, and just do 3 hilltop grids instead of the 
planned 4.   Right or wrong, this is what I done and it seemed to go well.


So my first grid was EM79 near Columbus, Indiana.   I didn't get here 
until late evening and, of course, 6 meters had cooled considerably by 
now.  I stayed a few hours, until almost dark, worked a few dozen QSO's, 
and decided to head for home for the evening.  Tomorrow, I hoped, would 
bring better times.   As fate would have it, on the way home a tree limb 
killed the reflector on my 6 meter make-shift antenna.  It was fragile, 
remember?  So now I'm left with just a dipole, but still on the air....


Sunday made up for a contest gone bad.  I ended up making very few 
contacts on 2 and 432, but 6 meters is jumping all day long.   My QSO 
numbers were way down from previous years, but all of the mults picked 
up on 6 boosted my score well past my previous efforts.

It was great to hear some old friends on the air after a long absence.  
I look forward to big things from the guys at K9SG. 

Thanks to all of the guys who pulled out my signal on 6.  Thanks to some 
amazing conditions, I was still able to have some great fun with just 
100 watts and a dipole.

Field day was a blast too, but that's another story:-)

Looking forward to the CQ-VHF,

73
Dan
-- 
K9ZF /R no budget Rover ***QRP-l #1269 
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