[VHFcontesting] WA4ZKO - CQ WW VHF plans & a "late" June VHF Contest report.

[Jeff Thomas]

I plan to be on for portions of the contest weekend from EM78PP in Northern Kentucky, 5 el 100w on 6m and 10 el 45w on 2m. 

73
Jeff
WA4ZKO

----- June ARRL VHF Report -----

Guess it's better late than never. Been super busy with work of late,
so I'm just now getting around to catching on on the ham stuff. Times below are local "eastern."

Short summary:

Total QSO's:  125 (2007 was 51)
Claimed Score:  10428 (2007 was 2806)

BAND   QSOs   GRIDS   STATES   DXCC   POWER   ANTENNA
6m      90     52       16       4     100w   5el 58'
2m      28     21       13       1      45w   10el 50'
432      7      6        5       1      45w   18el 55'

Long summary:

I only got to work portions of the contest. Mainly on for Saturday
afternoon and evening, then some more Sunday morning. While the action
was slow at times, propagation threw in some VERY nice surprises. 

This year I also implemented a personal rule that many are starting to
do and I support. I will not work guys on or within 5 KHz of the
calling freq on 6m. Not everyone on 6m is contesting and the mess many
make out of the 50.125 region for hours on end is exactly what
leaves such a bad taste with the non-contesting 6m folks. For
those that think camping out on 50.127 or 50.128 are doing us a big
favor, why even bother moving! Ok, off that soap box!

On 2 meters I'm considerably more tolerant as long as you're not
camping out on or near 144.200. I've found that occasionally calling
CQ on 144.200 and announcing a "QSY" frequency is a good technique
when it's slow. Cost me some points? Sure, but I doubt it's as much as
you might think. I'm only competing with my own previous scores, so
I'll put operating ethics over the "anything for a point" attitude.
That said, to each their own, but I say let's self police by example.

6 meters was the key band for sure and I think many were way too
focused on it as there was very few "locals" on 2m and 432. This when
we had at least mild tropo enhancement off to the WSW most of the
weekend. Then I bet many missed the big 2m eskip opening on Sunday
morning.

Saturday was mainly 6 meter openings to Texas and Mexico with nice
signals for hours. Around 4PM local Colorado stations were coming in
as things shifted around. Also around 5PM we had Louisiana, extreme
southern Alabama, and New Mexico paths on 6m. Then by later that
evening things had shifted to where most of Florida was booming in.

Sunday morning started off slow on 6m, but 2m tropo was there to a
fairly narrow corridor off to the WSW. I think I was just on the
eastern edge of corridor as the beacons were not detectable out that
way and only higher power stations where coming through. I would work
grids out in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri on 2m, not real strong and
many barely moving the s-meter. Grids were EM25, EM27, EM28, EM29, and
EM48. This was around 8-9AM local. Was going to go back and try 432
with some of these folks, but 2m eskip would sidetrack those plans!

Around 9:30 AM local 6m began opening up to Texas and Florida. CO2OJ
out of Cuba was easy on 6m and you could tell the band was building
fast. 

Just after 10 AM I worked W5JAY in EM25 (Fort Smith, Arkansas)
on 6m which immediately caught my eye as that is getting "short" and
was blistering strong. I'm also hearing the 50.615 packet systems in Arkansas so I figure let's check 2m. Sounds dead, so I let
6m distract me for a few more minutes then I go back to 2 meters. I
beam WSW, call CQ and immediately get answered by a very strong and
surprised sounding W5LCC in DM93 Texas at 10:35 AM. That got my
attention!  So I go check the "mountainlake" APRS map (good 2m band
indicator w/ a few caveats) and it's lit up big time. Want to know
what a solid eskip opening will look like, look no further than here:

http://tinyurl.com/5cf7vc

I move up the 2m band just a bit and start CQ'ing. Folks are scarce,
probably busy with the 6m opening. I'd already worked most of what I
was hearing on 6m so I focused on 2m for awhile. Stations on
the other end are scarce, but a few seem to realize 2m is wide open and are easy to work. I would work the following on 2 meter SSB eskip:

K7ICW  DM62  New Mexico

K5LA   DM61  Texas

W5GNB  DM73  New Mexico

and several others on tropo since I was beaming into it anyways.

I could tell by listening after things died down that many on 6m were
just getting word about the 2m eskip and had missed it. Good lesson
here, don't get so focused on chasing QSO's and multi's on 6m that you
don't notice the short skip indicators. Don't forget to check 2 meters
regardless.

Could I worked more folks had I stayed on 6m? Probably, but not
many more. Most of what I was hearing on 6m was the same Texas guys
I'd worked already. If I was contesting solely to win an award, I
might of stayed on 6m. I contest mainly to chase new grids/states and
compete against my previous scores as motivation for self/station
improvements. DX first, contest second is my approach!

As Sunday wore on 6 meters would really expand and frankly become a
mess as it opened to New England, Florida, and Texas at the same time.
Moving way up above 50.200 helped a lot as the low end of the band was
pure chaos. Lot of guys on down in the low end of the band that can't
hear each other equals a mess of them getting QRMed into oblivion. Hey guys we've got some good sprectrum up above 50.200 (50.300 for that matter), give it a try sometime ;-)

Around noon 6m would open to New England and I'd work several of the guys in Connecticut including Ron (WZ1V) and Jeff (K1TEO). I was on till about 2-3PM and took a break after working our local rover Dan (KZ9F) in few grids on all 3 bands.

Later on Sunday evening I got back on the air and things had calmed
down a lot. Mainly much weaker openings into Texas and Florida. My
final contact was XE3N in EL60 around 7:30 PM. I need to check, but I
think that's a rare grid (Cancun MX area). I called it quits around 8PM to get some other projects done before nightfall.

All in all, beautiful weather and some great contest/DX action this year.