06/12/2023
Over the last few years I have not been as active as I wanted on the VHF/UHF contests die to issues. In fact the last contest I was in a year ago I fried 2 antennas (stated power limit ratings matter). I sold my country house/land and moved to the inner city and was not looking forward to the noise levels. I have had 3 months to try and throw together a station for the contest with limited budget and means as the new house decided it wanted more money then planned. But we manage. So, I was looking forward to the contest and hoped to at least get a baseline of what I needed to work on down the road. 36 foot booms were not out of the question so they have all been sold and a new ham KJ5BBZ is going to have a decent station once it's all put back together at his QTH. So how did I do.. I had my IC-7300 and IC-9700 tuned programed with the computer software I thought I needed from the past. Microphone, headphones, keyer all ready. Tower at 36 feet and a 20 foot mast with a Custcraft 5ele for 6M. A Loop for 2M, I got a simple 6 ele yagi end mounted off ebay for 432 the week before in hopes to get a few contacts there. I set one amp at 500W for 6M due to the antenna limits. I set the 2M amp at 300W again due to the limits of the loop. The amp for 432 was not ready so I just had the 50W from the 9700. I was still using the old feed line (LMR-600) from the last QTH and were coiled up 250 foot lines. No time to cut them down to just the 50 foot runs I really needed now. Right before start we had a storm come through and I thought typical. But just as the contest started the noise floor dropped to almost zero as the storm passed, PERFECT. Dave/KJ5BBJ showed up to watch the start of the race. At start I was on WSJT to see band conditions to decide what was needed. JTAlert lit up like a Christmas tree with pages and pages of alerts: New Grid, Wanted Call, New State, New Prefix, New Country and on and on. Was nice to see K5QE the area contest station on again as he works well as a spotter for my weaker station. When he makes those far out calls I can adjust what I do have to try and see if I can even hear them with some beam adjustments and tuning. What I learned.
1. 6M was open almost all of the 36 hours. Starting from the east and moved west as the first day progressed. At about 2AM I assume people were napping as it dropped off but stations were still being on from all over. I was averaging 20-25 calls an hour, that dropped to 5/he through the late night times. By 5AM calls were back to 20-25/hr and continued till close at 10PM CST. The 2nd day almost all of the band was to the East and North East with little activity from the west. Pointed the yagi at 50degs and left it most of the day. While the majority of the calls were FT8/FT4, I did get some CW/SSB and a few Meteor Scatter calls when the scope showed activity. All in all I had open 6M the whole contest just had to decide what Mode to run and were. I was making calls as fast as I could with no drop in activity the whole time. Even made a couple of contacts into the EU as it opened for an hour.
2. 2M I was not expecting much with just the single loop at 50 feet and I was use to the 18### at 80 from past QTH. I was surprised I was getting contacts 300 miles away. Not near as much activity as I hoped but it was worth the work and I know I need to improve on this band. The plan is already in the works for a 4X8 at 35 feet soon. 2nd day we did see an amazing band opening to the north and east. I worked Nebraska right before the end and before that I made a few contacts into NC/SC. I ran 2M for all of the contest and when activity seemed light I would switch to 432 and make calls as I turned the beam around 360 degs towards major cities.
3. 432Mhz: Again not expecting much with just the 6ele at 45feet when I was use to a 30ft boom at 60ft, but I did manage to w**d out a few contacts through the contest. More range and calls then I hoped for. Plans are in the works to improve this antenna setup as well as fix the power cord for the 1KW amp ASAP.
Conclusion: About what I hoped for on each band with a few surprises thrown in to make the contest enjoyable even with no sleep for 36 hours.
6M: 575 Contacts for 215 grids
2M: 42 Contacts for 35 grinds
70cm: 7 Contacts for 6 grids
Total Contacts : 625
QSO Points : 631
Multipliers : 256
Total Score : 161,536 (New record for me)
Dave/N5ITO/EM22
