[VHFcontesting] Very poor contest in FN55

[Sean Waite]

Hi Paul,

For a good part of Sunday we basically made no 2m Q's because of the 6m
openings. We had all of the 6m contacts we could handle, and there wasn't
anything to pass. After night fell 6m dried up a lot, though we could still
hear a number of ft8 signals on 50.313. I don't know if it was just a few
of the same stations or not, we weren't equipped for digital in the rover.

The ratio of 432 and 222 to the lower bands was off from our previous
contests, but this was also our first  June contest so I don't know if
that's normal or not.

73,
Sean WA1TE

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 9:15 AM Alex <alex at kr1st.com> wrote:

> 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
> >_______________________________________________
> >VHFcontesting mailing list
> >VHFcontesting at contesting.com
> >http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
>