[VHFcontesting] W9SZ June VHF

[Zack Widup]

                   ARRL June VHF QSO Party

Call: W9SZ
Operator(s): W9SZ
Station: W9SZ

Class: Single Op Port QRP
QTH: Illinois
Operating Time (hrs): 7.0

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  18     14
    2:   7      6
  222:   6      6
  432:   7      7
  903:   4      4
  1.2:   6      6
  2.3:   2      2
  3.4:   3      3
  5.7:   1      1
  10G:   2      2
  24G:
-------------------
Total:  56     51  Total Score = 5,763

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

Sunday only operation. The wind was my nemesis. It was blowing constantly
in the range of 35 - 45 mph, gusting to maybe more. Since I have
rear-mounted loop Yagis for 902 and 1296, the wind wanted the antennas to
be pointed in the direction the wind was blowing - which was north. I
missed quite a few stations in other directions because I couldn't point my
beams at them. My method of using a vise grip to hold the mast in place
failed because a gust would cause the vise grips to snap open or come loose
from the mast. When I did get the antennas pointed, they would thrash
around as much as 30 degrees or so from where I wanted them. The whole
stack almost blew over several times.

My dish antenna for microwaves blew over a couple times and got a dent in
it. I managed to pound it out with a hammer. I don't think it affected
performance greatly. After that, I had to work the microwave bands with the
rig on the top of the car and holding the dish antenna tripod so it
wouldn't blow over.

Conditions were marginal. I did hear N4QWZ and W5ZN (Sean KX9X op?) on 144
SSB but couldn't get the antennas on them.

At least the rain held off until I started taking everything down. :-)

This is probably the fewest QSO's I've made in this contest in some years.
6 meters did open for a while and I managed to keep the beam to the
southwest and southeast long enough to work some people. Microwave bands
were rather poor. I had 24 GHz along but conditions on 10 GHz weren't good
enough to merit trying that band. I had trouble hearing on 222 which I
traced to the T/R relay and replaced it. Then that was fine.

So overall, not my best contest, but at least I made it.

73, Zack W9SZ