2006 ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes
01/30/2006 |
K2DRH EN41
This January VHF Sweepstakes seemed harder to prepare for than usual. While there was a pleasant lack of the usual antenna problems, there seemed no end to the stuff that needed to be done inside the shack. Ive been using a new rotor box from Green Heron Engineering that has been modified by W2FU and K0XG to run my rotating tower. The controller itself is really excellent and a pleasure to operate, but my 28VDC motor and chain drive arent the usual load for it so we have been customizing the voltage supply for my more demanding application (I want my tower to rotate FAST). With K0XGs help that was accomplished a week or two ahead of time and I integrated the controller with the computer so that that when I typed in a call I could click the mouse and have it rotate right to that station.
But wouldnt you know the day before the contest I noticed the rotation speed had slowed down again. This time it wasnt the DC power source. Increasing S9 arcing noises on 6M told me something was wrong, but a quick climb up the tower in the vain hope it was a loose connection showed me there was little I could do about it. The motor brushes were getting worn and slowing things down. And just when wed finally got the speed up where I wanted it, sigh. I couldnt rebuild the motor and replace them in time so I had to run it that way. A tad harder to peak up when your own motor gives you S9 impulse noise! And very frustrating when its slow to turn and catch a new multiplier before somebody else QSYs him! Its always something!
Before every contest I check all my power levels to ensure Im operating within the low power class rules. Usually this only requires an hour or two of inserting attenuators between the IF rigs and the transverters on the Tx line and adjusting the amplifier inputs to the required output levels. I run the 8877 amps on 6 and 2M with low drive, that way everything runs very conservatively and very clean. But on 2M I had all sorts of puzzling output level shifting problems until I finally discovered a marginal solder job done on the pin of a pre-made Heliax jumper made by the Heliax manufacturer itself! It had worked fine for several years previously, but eventually the solder cracked. It still made for a fine connection on receive, but was maddingly inconsistent on transmit! I went around and around for hours until I found it! Goes to show you that even the experts make bad connections sometimes! Cant trust anybody!
So with everything finally all ready to go the day before the contest all I had to do was relax, get plenty of sleep the night before and just get on when the contest started right? Wrong. Saturday dawned way too early with the sound of what N2KMA fondly refers to as the retching dog alarm clock. Both of our dogs had gotten into something only a dog can find appealing and were, dare I say it, sick as dogs! A trip to the vet revealed nothing seriously wrong, but I arrived back the shack barely in time to start the contest, somewhat rattled and much less rested than I would have liked!
The contest started well and kept up good all afternoon. Locally out to 300 miles or so signals were definitely way better than usual and activity was high. Some of the closer in stations were so loud they actually sounded distorted! After last years marginal conditions it was refreshing to hear so many good signals. It didnt seem to extend out past my normal range however, but it was a real pleasure to operate since signals were so loud on the lower four bands. But this unusual enhancement didnt extend up past 432 and many stations I can usually work on 903 and beyond just werent there on the high bands. Most band runs ended abruptly at 432 with a few hitting the wall after a very marginal 903 or 1296 contact. Had to make lots of skeds for later, only to find out that later wasnt much better either! We had a little treat in that conditions finally extended further south late on Saturday night, but only after the stations left to work had already thinned out considerably. Several grids out past 400 miles were workable up to 432, but no luck with the higher bands again. Tried to complete a 903 contact with Steve AG4V in EM55 for almost a half hour before finally giving up in frustration It would tease us by coming up to the noise level for a few seconds, then going away again. I also heard several needed grids working each other down south that I just couldnt break into. One familiar contest station asked me to standby while they were talking, but then forgot about me when their QSO was over! Grrr!
WSJT was great and the rocks were really flying Saturday night. I made all my skeds, most of my Ill try and catch you if theres time at the end before the next one tentative skeds, plus a few randoms thrown in for good measure. The new WSJT 6 program is a dream come true with instant decoding without waiting for the sequence to be over, and makes working stations a lot faster. However it gave me a few bad moments when I came to my sked with Jeff K1TEO and suddenly realized that it doesnt support switching to our usual 15 second sequences in the setup section! I had a new computer that Id never loaded with the old WSJT 4, so I had to find, load and set up the program before I could even start our sked, all the while listening to Jeffs big burns rattling my speakers for 5 minutes! We made up for it by working both bands in less than ten minutes after I settled down and I still caught up with W2FU and Andy on 2m after that as planned! A bit hectic for a few minutes, but still fun! Only missed one sked on Sunday morning with W4SHG (who accomplished a superhuman effort to be QRV after losing his antennas only a week before) and that was mainly because of a miscue on who was to be on what sequence (sorry Steve!).
Sunday conditions were average, none of the loud signals from the night before. Activity was still better than average however, and a lot of Qs went into the log. Even the afternoon doldrums were more productive than usual. The higher bands finally got better as the day progressed and were back to normal in most directions by the evening. Luckily Id made skeds with or ran into some of the stations Id tried with the night before and was able to add a lot more high band Qs and mults into the log. I was also thrilled to run into several old friends I hadnt heard in a while, including Smitty W0DQY who came on for a while just to give out a few points, and probably spent way too much time catching up with them. High point of the evening though was finding VE3AX in FN02 on CW just above 144.220 (my contest 2M hangout frequency). We worked on 2M, then QSYd to 222. We didnt complete there the first time, but went back again to finally complete over 15 minutes later. Once again I spent way too much time on one contact, but it was so far away and difficult that finally completing it really made the contest for me! I lucked into several other stations with lots of bands, sweeping Gary K3SIW on all 8, the only station I was able to do that with all contest. We did them all on SSB over 125 miles due in large part to his excellent microwave station! It was a solid January contest without extraordinary propagation, but with reasonably good band conditions for a change. -- K2DRH
But wouldnt you know the day before the contest I noticed the rotation speed had slowed down again. This time it wasnt the DC power source. Increasing S9 arcing noises on 6M told me something was wrong, but a quick climb up the tower in the vain hope it was a loose connection showed me there was little I could do about it. The motor brushes were getting worn and slowing things down. And just when wed finally got the speed up where I wanted it, sigh. I couldnt rebuild the motor and replace them in time so I had to run it that way. A tad harder to peak up when your own motor gives you S9 impulse noise! And very frustrating when its slow to turn and catch a new multiplier before somebody else QSYs him! Its always something!
Before every contest I check all my power levels to ensure Im operating within the low power class rules. Usually this only requires an hour or two of inserting attenuators between the IF rigs and the transverters on the Tx line and adjusting the amplifier inputs to the required output levels. I run the 8877 amps on 6 and 2M with low drive, that way everything runs very conservatively and very clean. But on 2M I had all sorts of puzzling output level shifting problems until I finally discovered a marginal solder job done on the pin of a pre-made Heliax jumper made by the Heliax manufacturer itself! It had worked fine for several years previously, but eventually the solder cracked. It still made for a fine connection on receive, but was maddingly inconsistent on transmit! I went around and around for hours until I found it! Goes to show you that even the experts make bad connections sometimes! Cant trust anybody!
So with everything finally all ready to go the day before the contest all I had to do was relax, get plenty of sleep the night before and just get on when the contest started right? Wrong. Saturday dawned way too early with the sound of what N2KMA fondly refers to as the retching dog alarm clock. Both of our dogs had gotten into something only a dog can find appealing and were, dare I say it, sick as dogs! A trip to the vet revealed nothing seriously wrong, but I arrived back the shack barely in time to start the contest, somewhat rattled and much less rested than I would have liked!
The contest started well and kept up good all afternoon. Locally out to 300 miles or so signals were definitely way better than usual and activity was high. Some of the closer in stations were so loud they actually sounded distorted! After last years marginal conditions it was refreshing to hear so many good signals. It didnt seem to extend out past my normal range however, but it was a real pleasure to operate since signals were so loud on the lower four bands. But this unusual enhancement didnt extend up past 432 and many stations I can usually work on 903 and beyond just werent there on the high bands. Most band runs ended abruptly at 432 with a few hitting the wall after a very marginal 903 or 1296 contact. Had to make lots of skeds for later, only to find out that later wasnt much better either! We had a little treat in that conditions finally extended further south late on Saturday night, but only after the stations left to work had already thinned out considerably. Several grids out past 400 miles were workable up to 432, but no luck with the higher bands again. Tried to complete a 903 contact with Steve AG4V in EM55 for almost a half hour before finally giving up in frustration It would tease us by coming up to the noise level for a few seconds, then going away again. I also heard several needed grids working each other down south that I just couldnt break into. One familiar contest station asked me to standby while they were talking, but then forgot about me when their QSO was over! Grrr!
WSJT was great and the rocks were really flying Saturday night. I made all my skeds, most of my Ill try and catch you if theres time at the end before the next one tentative skeds, plus a few randoms thrown in for good measure. The new WSJT 6 program is a dream come true with instant decoding without waiting for the sequence to be over, and makes working stations a lot faster. However it gave me a few bad moments when I came to my sked with Jeff K1TEO and suddenly realized that it doesnt support switching to our usual 15 second sequences in the setup section! I had a new computer that Id never loaded with the old WSJT 4, so I had to find, load and set up the program before I could even start our sked, all the while listening to Jeffs big burns rattling my speakers for 5 minutes! We made up for it by working both bands in less than ten minutes after I settled down and I still caught up with W2FU and Andy on 2m after that as planned! A bit hectic for a few minutes, but still fun! Only missed one sked on Sunday morning with W4SHG (who accomplished a superhuman effort to be QRV after losing his antennas only a week before) and that was mainly because of a miscue on who was to be on what sequence (sorry Steve!).
Sunday conditions were average, none of the loud signals from the night before. Activity was still better than average however, and a lot of Qs went into the log. Even the afternoon doldrums were more productive than usual. The higher bands finally got better as the day progressed and were back to normal in most directions by the evening. Luckily Id made skeds with or ran into some of the stations Id tried with the night before and was able to add a lot more high band Qs and mults into the log. I was also thrilled to run into several old friends I hadnt heard in a while, including Smitty W0DQY who came on for a while just to give out a few points, and probably spent way too much time catching up with them. High point of the evening though was finding VE3AX in FN02 on CW just above 144.220 (my contest 2M hangout frequency). We worked on 2M, then QSYd to 222. We didnt complete there the first time, but went back again to finally complete over 15 minutes later. Once again I spent way too much time on one contact, but it was so far away and difficult that finally completing it really made the contest for me! I lucked into several other stations with lots of bands, sweeping Gary K3SIW on all 8, the only station I was able to do that with all contest. We did them all on SSB over 125 miles due in large part to his excellent microwave station! It was a solid January contest without extraordinary propagation, but with reasonably good band conditions for a change. -- K2DRH
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