[VHFcontesting] CQWW VHF W9SZ HILLTOPPER

[Zack Widup]

                    CQ Worldwide VHF Contest

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

Class: Hilltopper QRP
QTH: Illinois
Operating Time (hrs): 5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  17      8
    2:  13      8
-------------------
Total:  30     16  Total Score = 688

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:Well, this contest turned out a lot differently than I expected at
first. In the January contest, I drove to my favorite hilltop and found it
to be a muddy swamp. After walking in it to put up antennas and sinking
several inches into the mud, I just drove home without even setting up. In
the June contest, I did get set up but a storm dumped a deluge on me for an
hour in the morning and a half an hour in the afternoon. The hilltop turned
into a muddy swamp, the wind blew down my 6m beam and broke the elements
off. So I only worked three stations and then went home.

I rebuilt the 6m beam and made some improvements to my 2m transverter.

On Sunday I looked at the radar at 6 am and saw a large area of rain and
storms heading my way. I was afraid it would turn into another fiasco like
the earlier contests but decided to drive to the hilltop and see what
happened. When I got there it was very lightly raining. The wind was
gusting to about 45 mph. I set up the 2m beam with difficulty and made a
few QSO's. Then the rain stopped, the wind died down and it looked like the
rest of the rain was going to go to the south, so I set up the 6m beam.

Murphy must've gone off to another part of the world after that because the
rest of the time I was there, I had a cloud cover to keep it cooler but no
more rain. All the equipment worked fine. There were no 6m openings but the
beam did well with local QSO's. There were sporadic enhancements on 2m. I
repeatedly heard a station in EN35 who I was unable to work. But the rest
of the contest was fun. It seemed that local participation was down a bit -
I didn't hear a lot of stations that have been in my log in previous years.

Hopefully the rest of the year goes the same way.

73, Zack W9SZ