[VHFcontesting] 432 Sprint

Thu Apr 23 07:54:56 PDT 2009

Dave, 
please wear an approved HAZMAT outfit when you walk into the Double Tree hotel in Charlotte tomorrow so we all know which lunch table NOT to sit at !! 

Ron
WW8RR  

-----Original Message-----
From: vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of David Olean
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:23 AM
To: Michael Gullo; vhfcontesting at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] 432 Sprint

How to begin?
I had a "trying" evening. First off, I was "trying" to get the station hooked up. No time before the sprint to assemble the station, so I was putting it together at 5:30 PM on Wednesday evening. It was pouring rain which did not help things. The dirt road goatpath was a quagmire, although the waterfall halfway up the road was rather scenic in the rain..
    The blower for the amplifier is remoted outside the building. During the winter, the blower housing got ripped off the building in a storm,and was smashed and laying on the ground. I had to repair all that in the rain. The worst part was "trying" to clean all the mouse pee and poop off the plastic hose that runs into the shack.. The blue flex hose was actually brown. It was disgusting. If I catch Bubonic Plague or the Black Death in the next few days, you will know where I got it! And I am going to the SE VHF Conference right after the Sprint! There is a chance that the whole VHF SSB/CW operator pool in the Southeast USA will get wiped out by the Black Death all because of the 432 Sprint.
      I got the exciter and transverter hooked up next, but had trouble with the new solid state driver amp. I did not have enough drive in the present configuration, but figured I could get on the air with slightly low power. 
My transverter only puts out +24 dBm. Well, the gain changed with the amplifier as it went into TX. The result was I started out with 900 watts out, and after about 20 seconds, was down to 200 watts out.  To make matters worse, I had a high VSWR on the 432 yagi. There is water in the array somewhere. Gee, that is strange! How could water get into anything? I have spent my life trying to waterproof rf cables and antennas, but still get routinely beaten by Mother Nature. (The BUM!)  So here it is "Earth Day", and I am calling Mother Nature a BUM! It won't be long and I'll be in a re education camp for sure! I was still hearing signals on 432, so figured I could "try" to work around the water issue with the high VSWR. I finally got things running enough to try it all out a bit after 7:30 PM. I never got the computer installed, so logged everyone on napkins and scratch paper that the mice had not entirely eaten over the winter. If I don't re write the log sheets onto clean paper, there will be more mysterious medieval type deaths for sure when I send them through the mail.
    I worked nothing that resembled a good DX QSO.  I think the problem was that many stations do not aim my way as a routine procedure.  The multi path was horrendous. I heard WZ1V when I first turned on the rig, and honestly felt that my receiver was hosed. I could not tune him in on upper sideband. 
I tried lower sideband and had the same results. He was not coherent up here, but it was all because of the horrendous multi path. (I will not insert a "coherent" joke here at Ron's expense as he promised me a small hybrid amp to boost the output of my transverter. The joke might jeopardize my chances of getting the power levels right with the new driver amp.)  I had to wait until Ron, WZ1V turned his antenna so I could copy him. I heard VE2ZAZ calling K1TEO, when I had the beam due west. I tried turning the antenna to the proper heading but could hear nothing from VE2ZAZ. (?) I called and called to no avail. Later I heard him calling CQ and getting no takers. I turned the antenna and found that the best heading was 250 degrees. It should have been 310 degrees or so! The only way I could hear him was by multi path reflection off some faraway mountains. The direct path was inaudible!! He finally heard me with my power level sweeping amplifier, but I never did get a great signal out of the direct path. I do not think that he ever aimed southeast. I heard similar effects on K1TEO, WZ1V, and WA2FGK. I could tell when they were aiming west as I got multipath signals from them at weird headings to the west!
    Some signals were good here. WB2RVX in South Jersey, and WB2SIH were loud. KA1ZE/3 was good as was K3TUF. I heard nothing past FM29 and FN10 to the SW. Not much to the wset either. I worked N2LID with good signals, but never heard KA2LIM. With the driving rain, I was not surprised. Conditions were just miserable. I ended up quitting at 10 PM with only 11 grids. Not sure how many contacts. I left the mouse pee stained napkins/logs up in the shack, so my wife would not die from Bubonic Plague. I would really be in the doghouse with her if that happened.  I think it was around 25 or 30 Qs.
    Why do I do this?

73
Dave K1WHS  FN43Mumbo Jumbo
    ----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Gullo" <mgullo3 at comcast.net>
To: <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:56 AM
Subject: [VHFcontesting] 432 Sprint

> Conditions were fair here in South Jersey. Rain just stopped before 
> contest started. Must have been going to FN12. Sri Ken! Ended up with 32 
> q's in 14 grids. Best DX was VE2DSB in FN35 419 mi. Tnx to our sponsors es 
> CU on the microwave sprint.
>
> Mike - WB2RVX
> FM29mt
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting at contesting.com
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