[VHFcontesting] N8RA January VHF SS

[Chet, N8RA]

Band	QSOs	Grd
50	135	19
144	191	26
420  	 13	 7

Total	339   52

Score: 18,304

This was the first time entering as multiop in a VHF contest. Don, KD1EU and
I teamed up for it. 
A week before the contest we integrated his TS2000 into the station here.
Having previously done some HF multi-oping, we already had many of the
cables and adapters required, and the N1MM logging software made it easy to
network the two computers at the two operating positions. "All" that was
missing was a Kenwood 8 pin male mic connector so that his new headphone-mic
could tie into my audio switching scheme for the TS2000 operating position.
Don picked up a connector during the week and we started to wire it in an
hour before the contest start. Well, it turns out that was not all we needed
for this straightforward task, and 45 minutes later we were still struggling
to make it work. The heart of the issue was that we did not realize that
this headset mike was an electret type and required some voltage on one of
the connector pins, which my audio wiring did not provide. We started the
contest with an alternate desk boom mike. Sunday morning, I arose at 5AM
determined to make his headset mike work. After wiring a feed for a low
voltage into the adapter cable and connecting it to a small power supply, I
could still not get it to work. Then I tried an alternate feed of just the
computer audio into the rear connector of the TS2000 and could not get that
to work either! I know this can work, but sifting thru the 200 pages of
Kenwood manual, wiring the teeny tiny pins of the plugs, and wandering thru
the gazillion menu setup options for the radio was not successful and we
felt we better just resume operating without it. 

This was also the first major VHF contest here using 70 cm. It was the
maiden voyage of a surplus AM6155 that I had modified for service on 70cm,
and it worked FB with 125 watts out. But a few days before the contest, a
bizarre strike by Murphy afflicted my FT897 which was the intended 70cm
radio. Out of the blue, the 897 transmitter developed a spurious
oscillation; if the radio was just put into transmit mode with a /PTT, but
no key closure, the output should have been zero, but it was putting out a
signal varying from 1-3 watts at who knows what frequency. Waving a hand
over the radio or holding some of the cabling could occasionally get it to
stop, but not consistently. I finally narrowed it down to the 432 MHz
bandpass filter on the main pcb in the radio. A slight adjustment of one of
the trimmer caps in this area got rid of this parasitic, but it had taken a
few late nights to track this down. During the contest it became clear that
the FT897 receiver on 70cm is not real good. Giving up on the idea to keep
70cm as an independent setup, the 70cm position was moved over to the TS2000
during a lull in the contest. This again meant sifting thru the 200 pages of
Kenwood manual, wiring the teeny tiny pins of a plug, and searching thru the
gazillion menu options to find the item that would then enable the external
432 amp control pin. This will be no surprise to most of you, but 70cm is
sure a different animal from 6M, or even 2M!!  Our antenna was a "starter" 6
element yagi.  Because of where I had installed it and the terrain here, it
is 100' lower than my 2M antenna. To the east and northeast, it looked into
heavily snow laden trees as close as 20 feet away and then into dirt farther
up the hill. Signals in that direction were very weak, even from the locals
only 30 miles away. In other directions the take off situation is much
better and we did manage to make some contacts, with 300 miles as the best
DX. It is a beginning, and we now know better what we need to do. 

The 6M antennas share a tower with HF yagis, and the rotor for them has been
out of commission for a few weeks. On Tuesday before the contest, the temps
were above the teens and I was able to put up another small yagi side
mounted on the tower pointing W-NW to give is that direction. Since the main
6M antenna was stuck SW, I chose that direction thinking that if we got some
Es then that might be the direction to have. It turns out this was a good
guess. Sunday morning, Don and I were lamenting the poor propagation
conditions, and how much things had slowed down. Then at about 15:20Z, I
heard a loud K9 on 6M, quickly found a clear spot, and started CQing. Ten
minutes later the skip was gone (gone-gone), but 10 Q's and 5 Midwestern
mults made it into the log. The expression "if you snooze, you lose" was
certainly true for this opening. 

There seemed to be more rover activity that we were able to hear and contact
this time. My hat is off to those who put these fantastic rolling shacks
together, and to others who brave portable locations in January. Kudos also
go to W1HNF, who, at 92 years old and a ham for over 75 years, stopped by to
give us a 2M contact and then cheerfully moved over to 6M to give us a
contact there. Something to inspire us all. 

73, and thank for the Q's and wisdom oft expressed on the reflectors,
Chet, N8RA