[VHFcontesting] June Contest - AF9J LP

[Ellen]

I wish I'd had more time to prepare (due to understaffing at work, resulting in me working long hours [including this past Saturday morning]).  But it still was a nice contest. While 6 wasn't open non-stop here, like it seemed to be in some parts of the country, it was open much more that it has been for some years of this contest.  I don't run high power (I operate from my apartment), so it was tough, and in some cases impossible breaking the pileups (XE2WWW comes to mind - even when he was 20 over 9 on CW, I could not break the pileups).  Out of desparation to increase my ERP on 6, I did some quick and dirty antenna changes to the 6m antenna.  Unfortunately, it degraded my 6m performance, and after an hour and a half of diamsl results, I changed the antenna back to its original configuration.  When things slowed down, I took some time to re-wire a mic for a 220 FM rig given to me by Mike, AA9IL (thanks!  :)  ).  It's working, but my kludged together 222 antenna just didn't cut it on 223.5 FM.  Oh well, hopefully I'll have something better for the Sept. contest.

My totals operating semi-QRP (15 watts on 6m, and 12 watts on 2m):

6m            37 QSOs            26 grids
2m             3 QSOs               2 grids

Total         40 QSOs            28 grids

Score - 1,120 points

73,
Ellen - AF9J