2005 ARRL September VHF Contest
09/18/2005 |
N
....NRW...en41go...Iowa...
...The Big Day (( Saturday )):::: It was a hot sunny 91 degrees...A slight 7 mph wind out of the South... I started out pointing North///Northwest... Contact with KWU way up in en37 (( 400+ miles )) on the lower 4 bands was no problem this time... The bands were quiet for once,,, very little noise.... A steady flow of Q's were coming in from all directions... But no really big runs... As the day was coming to an end around midnight... Contacts dropped off to almost nothing...I turned the 2 meter array around 360 degrees one last time looking for anyone I could find...To my surprise ,,, I could hear aurora on KWU's signal up in en37... This could be good,,,very,,,very,,,good.... Just 30 minutes later the wave of hope hit ,,, I was off to 6 meters for some aurora action...The multipliers were counting up fast... A few to the Northwest,,, but mostly North///Northeast... Three hours later it was all gone,,, or I was just too tired to go on... I called it a night around 4am...
Sunday:::
Another hot steamy 90 degree day... I started out pointing North... Signals were very good... But Q's were coming in slower than on Saturday...As the day progressed ,, it got even slower ,,, So slow I thought about taking an afternoon nap for a couple of hours ... But I was still logging around 8 Q's an hour so I stuck it out.. It didn't change all day untill late afternoon... A nice 6 meter band opening starting here at 22:30 and ending at 01:00 to the Southeast (Florida & surrounding areas) really cranked up the Q & grid count...But it died out just 2 hours before the end.. I found 2 meters some what enhanced after that to the North and South... 222 & 432 were much better now than on Saturday... So I tied up a few missed contacts on those bands...I ended up with a pretty good score as the final bell rang.... (ؿ...
The Cheese:::
I ran in the high power single operator section... 2,,6,,222,,432 & 1296....
Everything worked great,,, nothing went up in smoke... The newly designed 2 & 6 meter arrays worked great... Perfect for contesting....I found band conditions this time to be a mixed bag... Sometimes 2 meters would be the loudest out of the lower 4... Sometimes 6 meters was the loudest... Suprising was when 432 was the loudest... Not once did I find 222 to be the loudest....I spent the majority of my time on 2 meters... I made more contacts on 2 meters by going through the back or side of other stations antennas to start with than ever before...Once they heard my grid square and pointed at me it was an easy contact... I guess 1500 watts and 8 yagi's helps a little bit too... At 1st I thought we were dealing with a small pool of contesters///point giver outers ... But it seems that most were looking somewhere other than en41 for points... The aurora on Saturday and 6 meter opening on Sunday added up to a little more than a third of my score... I needed it as my log shows very few rovers were with in contact distance... Big thanks to the rovers who did make it into my log...Look for me next in the 2006 January ARRL vhf sweepstakes... -- N
...The Big Day (( Saturday )):::: It was a hot sunny 91 degrees...A slight 7 mph wind out of the South... I started out pointing North///Northwest... Contact with KWU way up in en37 (( 400+ miles )) on the lower 4 bands was no problem this time... The bands were quiet for once,,, very little noise.... A steady flow of Q's were coming in from all directions... But no really big runs... As the day was coming to an end around midnight... Contacts dropped off to almost nothing...I turned the 2 meter array around 360 degrees one last time looking for anyone I could find...To my surprise ,,, I could hear aurora on KWU's signal up in en37... This could be good,,,very,,,very,,,good.... Just 30 minutes later the wave of hope hit ,,, I was off to 6 meters for some aurora action...The multipliers were counting up fast... A few to the Northwest,,, but mostly North///Northeast... Three hours later it was all gone,,, or I was just too tired to go on... I called it a night around 4am...
Sunday:::
Another hot steamy 90 degree day... I started out pointing North... Signals were very good... But Q's were coming in slower than on Saturday...As the day progressed ,, it got even slower ,,, So slow I thought about taking an afternoon nap for a couple of hours ... But I was still logging around 8 Q's an hour so I stuck it out.. It didn't change all day untill late afternoon... A nice 6 meter band opening starting here at 22:30 and ending at 01:00 to the Southeast (Florida & surrounding areas) really cranked up the Q & grid count...But it died out just 2 hours before the end.. I found 2 meters some what enhanced after that to the North and South... 222 & 432 were much better now than on Saturday... So I tied up a few missed contacts on those bands...I ended up with a pretty good score as the final bell rang.... (ؿ...
The Cheese:::
I ran in the high power single operator section... 2,,6,,222,,432 & 1296....
Everything worked great,,, nothing went up in smoke... The newly designed 2 & 6 meter arrays worked great... Perfect for contesting....I found band conditions this time to be a mixed bag... Sometimes 2 meters would be the loudest out of the lower 4... Sometimes 6 meters was the loudest... Suprising was when 432 was the loudest... Not once did I find 222 to be the loudest....I spent the majority of my time on 2 meters... I made more contacts on 2 meters by going through the back or side of other stations antennas to start with than ever before...Once they heard my grid square and pointed at me it was an easy contact... I guess 1500 watts and 8 yagi's helps a little bit too... At 1st I thought we were dealing with a small pool of contesters///point giver outers ... But it seems that most were looking somewhere other than en41 for points... The aurora on Saturday and 6 meter opening on Sunday added up to a little more than a third of my score... I needed it as my log shows very few rovers were with in contact distance... Big thanks to the rovers who did make it into my log...Look for me next in the 2006 January ARRL vhf sweepstakes... -- N
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