[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] K1WHS 2M Spring Sprint

[David Olean]

Well, I managed to get on 144 MHz in time for the 144 MHz Sprint.  I 
used my hardly ever used mobile rig in  my pickup truck. It was an 
IC-7100 DC to Daylight mobile rig with 50 watts output (I think) on 2M.  
I mounted a horizontal omni antenna behind the cab and it is about 8 ft 
off the ground. Quite the setup, and I am not that familiar with the 
radio as it is rarely used. I had trouble figuring out how to make it 
work on CW. Finding the magic menu entry was the problem. My plan was to 
use a laptop for logging as I can't write legibly anymore due to tremors 
in my right hand. Well the laptop battery was DED, and not enuf time to 
recharge it, so I grabbed an old logbook and tried writing left handed. 
My log looks like a 4 year old wrote it. Writing was very slow and I had 
no good place for writing or placing the code key. I finally got a 
system going, and adapted to the situation, but I noted that I worked 
out the band awfully fast. There just were very few SSB or CW signals.

I could hear signals in New England, but the zero gain antenna that was 
not on a mountain top was underwhelming at pulling in DX signals. I 
missed many stations I am sure. From others on the band, I could tell 
that W9KXI and WA3NUF were on, but I just did not hear anything from 
them. I did manage to work N2NT, but it was a rough contact on CW. He 
was not that strong here and I was only running 50 watts on CW. I 
suspect the receive in the IC-7100 is not the greatest.  I did manage to 
work WW2Y/r in FN30. I am not sure, but I think he was on the Palisades 
in NJ and there is a good takeoff to New England. We actually worked on 
SSB.hat is a distance of about 230 miles, which ain't too bad for a 
mobile station with an omni antenna.  N2NT on CW was at 278 miles.  I 
did not have any provision for running FT8 from the truck, so I missed a 
lot of activity there.  By 9 PM I was beating a dead horse with no other 
stations showing up. I folded up the tent and went home. I drove back to 
the house through the woods, and worked my last station from FN42 in my 
driveway.  It was fun but also a bit frustrating.  Not having the extra 
10 to 15 dB of aluminum sure makes tropo scatter impossible.

Dave K1WHS


I ended up with 18 stations worked in ten grids.



On 4/15/2025 10:27 AM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> 144 MHz Spring Sprint - 2025
>
> Call: WZ1V
> Operator(s): WZ1V
> Station: WZ1V
> Class: Single Op HP
> QTH: FN31
> Operating Time (hrs): 3.5
>
> Summary:
> Total: QSOs = 77 Mults = 24 Total Score = 1,848
>
> Club: North East Weak Signal Group
>
> Comments:
> New twist allowing 2 Q's, but didn't do much to increase SSB-CW activity in my
> opinion yet. By old metric I had 62 Q's. I only found 15 "extra" for a
> second mode. 44 Q's were on SSB or CW, the rest on FT8.
> I operated the first 90 minutes on SSB-CW until the activity there
> dried up, then switched to FT8 occasionally going back to SSB. Took a half-hour
> break for our local 1296 MHz activity night. No contacts over 400 miles other
> than K3SK FM07 on FT8. I got the feeling a good number of ops weren't aware you
> could QSO twice, so it will be interesting to see what evolves going forward.
> Thanks for the QSOs.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V
>
> Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
>
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