[VHFcontesting] N8RA June VHF QSO Party

[chetsubaccount at snet.net]

Band   Mode  QSOs Grd
   144  FT8     25      16
   222  FT8       1        1
 Total  Both    26      17
Score: 459
Low power

A rambling report of the ARRL June VHF contest. 

First, the excuses:

I was not ready.

With the lifting of covid restrictions, long overdue visits by out-of-town
family occurred on the two weekends before the contest, wiping out the time
needed to put the station back together for VHF.

And, a few weeks ago, a new strong source of noise popped up on 6M. It is
very demotivating to have it peaking at S9 around the clock. And the power
company has not yet fixed another nearby noise source. As others have
lamented, noise can be a big demotivator to weak signal work. 

Noise mitigation plan B was to reorient the noise pickup antenna and use an
ANC-4 to null it. That worked a few years ago. After doing this little tower
chore,  that vertically polarized noise yagi was not picking up much noise.
Was it pointed the wrong way or was the noise mainly horizontally polarized?
No time to explore further. 

Another de-motivator is the encouragement to use cellphones, texts, and chat
sites to arrange contacts. If that is the norm now, there goes the challenge
and satisfaction of all I've constructed and learned over the years. 

Saturday My MYL needed help in prepping and packing for her long-planned
trip with a large group of painters to the Adirondacks. Her GPS went funny
during her drive there and so I performed remote guidance the rest of the
afternoon. 

Microsoft, N1MM+, and WSJT-X had updates and were not always playing well
networked together, especially when I tried to throw in a small SDR to have
some spectrum display windows open- why would the spectrum window list my
correct 222 Mhz. radio freq  in the corner but mark the spectrum axis as
being 14 or 181 MHz, and then close the program when changing a setting?
Still to iffy, and trying to fix this during the contest is not a fun
strategy. 


Next day fun stuff.

Sunday was a better day. 

After Church, I was determined to cruise the neighborhood hunting for the
powerline noise source. Put the little FT-897 in the truck and used a 2M
whip antenna. Found it! A utility pole in the right direction about 900 feet
away on a side street is totally buried in a thicket of trees and bushes
that hug that pole and all its wires. This pole was barely visible as I
drove by, but its noise flowed out freely. Added its pole number to my
original complaint about the other intermittently arcing utility pole
nearby. 

Then spent some time successfully debugging a new HF stack-match controller
and sowing more seed in the veggie garden.

After dinner I fired up on 2M, where the line noise is not too bad. I
figured everyone would now be exhausted from working wall to wall 6M E-skip
so would be relaxing on FT8. This did not disappoint. Spent a little over an
hour and easily worked 16 grids. Best DX was over 400 miles to EN91. That
was fun.

I also monitored the 222 FT8 watering hole during this time expecting to
hear a few stalwarts pounding away for a few more Q's, but nada. My K3
transverter interface would not transmit at first, just like last January.
In my fiddling to get it to transmit, the attentive ears of W2SZ up on Mount
Greylock heard me and put out a CQ nearby. We made a quick contact, and then
both began CQing, but no one else was heard. Perhaps the band is a lost
cause unless you use chat rooms. So sad.

This morning I placed an order with Elecraft for an upgraded transverter
interface board. Better get one while I still can. This latest rev has the
built in 6M preamp so that will free up some rear panel wiring for use with
the SDR and ANC-4 when needed. Is this gear still called wireless??

73 and CU next time,
Chet, N8RA