[VHFcontesting] Very poor contest in FN55

[Alex]

Hi Paul,

I thought activity was lower than usual on two meters, too. Or at least in my area. I added a panadapter/band scope to my 2m rig last year and kept seeing the same 3 or 4 traces of the stations I already worked in the first few minutes of the contest. Even on digital on 2m I saw very little activity.

I held off adding 432 for this contest because I was afraid it would add maybe a handful of Qs which really isn't worth the investment, especially if 6m would open. And boy, did it open and turn the contest into just another HF contest.

73,
--Alex KR1ST (FN21fk)

On Jun 13, 2018, 8:21 AM, at 8:21 AM, N1BUG <paul at n1bug.com> wrote:
>Made only 19 QSOs in 11 grids on 2m. Conditions were variable
>Saturday but good peaks with signals from FN20/21 running S7 to S9
>for several minutes at a time.
>
>Activity seemed very low. I listened several times Sunday and heard
>no more than one or two stations which I had already worked Saturday.
>
>Was activity really this low or was it that people were spending a
>lot of time on digital?
>
>I'm now going to wait and see where we are before adding more bands.
>If SSB/CW activity in contests has taken a big hit, I see no point
>in adding 222/432. Those bands would have been useless this time as
>it would have been impossible to find stations to run bands with.
>
>I remain interested in getting on 1296 regardless, since that is
>unexplored territory for me. But that is still one to three years
>away. I have the transverter and amplifier but need antenna, preamp,
>and better feedline.
>
>I find myself more and more disillusioned with operating and am
>becoming more of an experimenter and explorer.
>
>73,
>Paul N1BUG
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