02/04/2006 | K7BV From my perspective, 2006 saw a very typical January VHF SS. I count as norms the following: (1) winter winds = lots of power line noise (2) not one single Sporadic Es opening (3) NFL playoffs on TV competed for potential contacts (4) Murphy arriving for his first of many to come - visit of the New Year.

My primary reasons for entering VHF contests are to have fun, run into old and new friends, extend my knowledge of my band of choice, and to use the large antenna array I am blessed to own to maybe give a few folks their only 6 meter FN31 multiplier. Therefore, I entered my usual non-existent contest category: Single Op, Single Band Obsession-6M, Single 8877, Single H Frame. However, this year I moved from the Single Planet classification to the Multi-Planet arena after deciding to use the moon for EME grid chasing. I used the following modes to make QSOs: SSB, CW, WSJT modes JT6M-FSK441-JT65. Sadly, I forgot to check the FM simplex channels and, even though I had a number of frequency jammers, none of them used AM so I missed both of these modes.

I sent my transceiver in for a lube and tune-up the week before the contest. So, having no life other than being a 6m fanatic, I had nothing to do in the evenings leading up to the contest but to drive the meteor scatter community nuts as I secured WSJT digital skeds with ops in 48 grids outside my tropo range 350 to 425 miles. While I did not have many dreams (okay, okay.I had some) of working grids ON the moon, I did arrange 5 skeds using the moon to work Earth grid multipliers.

I finished with 340 QSOs in 84 grids with 23 hours in front of the rig yes, you are right, I DO need to get a life.

The grid breakdown might be of interest to some. Looking through the log, I note 40 of the 84 grids were worked only via WSJT modes on meteor scatter. EME produced 3 grids in EU. Therefore, lacking Es, SSB/CW tropo and forward scatter accounted for the remaining 41 grids. DX worked included VP9 on SSB meteor scatter as well as G, ON, SM on EME.

New things learned:

----Spacing my meteor scatter QSOs 15 minutes apart proved to be more than enough time. Being careful to only sked EMEers with BIG BOY toys, I was able to complete those contacts in the dead of the night in anywhere from 10 to about 30 minutes.

----My station is an Alligator at times now with the 1,500 watt 8877 amp and I need to be sensitive to that fact when listening for calls. I added an in-shack preamp some months ago. I generally do not run the preamp on SSB or CW but did pull it in a few times during the contest to hear some ether level callers that otherwise would have been missed using the rig stock preamps.

Old things that I wish I HAD NOT learned to be true:

----Some stations cannot keep endless mindnumbing CQs off 50125, presumably believing that stations listening on that frequency encounter some sort of signal enhancement direct to their station. This logic appears to be seriously flawed, though, because rarely do those CQers seem to hear the bellowing curses of non-contesters asking them to QSY, many times offering specific places to go to Heaven not being among them.

----Through careful observation of various operating techniques employed up here in W1 land, I am reminded that it is indeed possible to turn up ones mic gain and to compress the audio so horribly that it can be made to be impossible to copy even though the amplifier final is doing a meltdown and the output occupies enough bandwidth to accommodate, say, a TV video channel with ones splatter. On this subject, I note that those audio output adjustment also appear to affect the offenders receiver as well since they rarely can hear all the screams from the less-than-adoring observing crowds.

Thanks very much for the fun May the Es be with you in 2006

73 de Dennis -- K7BV