[VHFcontesting] FW: ARRL Jan VHF N8RA Single Op LP

[Chet S]

                    ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes

Call: N8RA
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: FN31 Connecticut
Operating Time (hrs): 15
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  120    19
    2:   87    19
  222:   22    10
  432:   18     6
  -------------------
Total:  247    54  Total Score = 15,498

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:
The Saturday morning snow was wet and sticky, and as temperatures dropped it
became permanently stuck to antennas, rotors, trees, and hillsides. That,
plus poor conditions offering little or no enhancement, made for tough
sledding this year. But carry on we must, and the bummed out feeling at the
start and from stuck rotators gave way to fun as a few goodies showed up
here and there on the bands. Best tropo distances were approx. 260 miles on
6M and 222, 325 miles on 2M, and 140 miles on 432. 

A new antenna project this time was the addition of another 2M antenna. The
hard part was making a relay switch box to allow selecting antenna A, B, or
both. Use of 75 ohm hardline feedlines for the antennas made this
interesting, but finally got something working reasonably well (I think). 

A few weeks before the contest I tackled issues of computer/USB/rf
wiring/radio noise coupling and was able to reduce it to the point of not
being able to hear if the computer was on or not: this was accomplished
mainly through separation of wiring, routing, and grounding. But I think it
is time to completely disassemble the operating desk and rebuild it from
scratch again.

The biggest goof during the contest: forgetting to switch the shared
feedline back to 2M use after a 432 contact. That left the 2M amplifier
CQing into about 15 feet of open end coax for a few minutes until I notice
no movement of the 2M wattmeter. The rugged AM-6154 amplifier did not seem
to be damaged by that, hooray!