2006 ARRL June VHF Contest
06/12/2006 |
K2DRH
The pre-contest maintenance list seemed simple this time since everything had made it through the winter intact. After blowing the old one up a couple times, Id finally upgraded the 2M preamp so I could run full power on 2M and play with 2M WSJT EME. All I had on the agenda was to run a new shielded control line for the 2M preamp, replace the arcing brushes on the rotor motor and a connector on the 2304 coax that had gotten wet. Or so I thought. The lack of any serious problems was a good thing because my work schedule prevented me from doing much of anything serious with the station before Memorial Day weekend anyway.
The top of the tower stopped rotating entirely mid-May and on inspection the brushes were fine. Apparently a leaking seal in the gearbox had filled the motor with oil and the whole thing had to be taken down and rebuilt. I brought up a small power meter to assess the coax loss after the connector replacement and it was still horrible. Taking Ohmmeter measurements between center and shield then opening up all the connectors confirmed my worst fears; both the half inch Superflex and the 1-5/8 hardline were full of water and the copper was green with corrosion. Apparently the connector at the preamp JB had been leaking for months all through the system right down to the ground. All the connectors had to be reworked and I poured about a quart of water out of the 1-5/8. Id taken Memorial Day week off to work on stuff and luckily there were several hot dry days in a row for it to bake out. When it went back together it wasnt perfect and the coax still needs to be replaced before the UHF contest, but at least now I was able to hear the preamp again and push 10W out of the tower mounted junction box.
On the Friday before Memorial Day weekend N2KMA said she smelled something burning from the air conditioning ducts. I asked her to look at the amps in the basement and she confirmed the lights were out on the 2M amp and the smell was actually coming from it. Turned out the 2M amp control transformer had given up the ghost! A quick call to Henry and a new one was on the way. The new preamp control line installation went well, but an awesome 6M opening to JA using 1.5 KW on CW the Tuesday before the contest apparently blew up the new 2M preamp on sheer RF overload! Thursday night I replaced it (again!) and reconfigured the sequencer so it switches off the 2M preamp on both 6M and 2M transmit. A quick climb on Friday to make sure the 2304 connectors were still dry (one wasnt, it apparently takes a very long time for water to completely drain out of Superflex) and the station was finally ready!
Saturday dawned rainy and cold, often with bouts of intense precipitation static on the high 6M stack. I have two low 5El CC antennas at 20 specifically for such occasions, one fixed on FL and the other rotatable. The low antennas keep you on the air when the rain comes through and are also useful when the band is open in more than one direction. The contest started with a bang! The band was open in three directions, NE, W and SE so I established a run frequency and put all three antennas to work at once. The highest volume of callers was to the NE so the stack stayed there most of the time, but there were also a fair amount of callers on the other rotatable antenna that tracked the shifting openings from the West and SW and some from the FM grids off the fixed FL antenna. It was difficult to leave 6M and run the bands with closer in stations that wouldnt or couldnt be there later knowing that Id likely not get my run frequency back, but it was necessary to do it. I lost it several times and ran up the band searching and pouncing until I found another clear spot, often well over 200. The band was so full I worked stations over 300!
2M was a veritable ghost land! The only signals heard were from the multi ops and you could QSY stations directly to 200! Several times I checked 2M when 6M was short, but never lucked into any 2M Es like some others did. After 7 hours and almost 700 Qs in the log I finally had to get out of the chair since my eyeballs were floating! But what an amazing ride!!! (Mommy can I go again??? PLEEZE!!) The 6M Es continued for another couple of hours but rates fell way off and I started to comb 2M for more normal QSOs that were finally around before everyone sane went to bed.
The WSJT skeds were cooperative too, but rocks seemed fewer and further between on 2M than they usually are. I was amazed that there were practically NO randoms being done on 6M but the skeds with stations I didnt happen to work already during the Es usually went quickly. I did catch K8GP in FM07 on 2M and he QSYd me to 6M. We then tried 222 but I never heard them. Id called him earlier on 432 when he was fairly loud there, but they never heard me. Other stations have told me they were up over S9 on 432 earlier but by the time I got there they were just barely copiable. I finally crashed around 0800Z with well over 250K points in the log only to start all over again at 1100Z.
Sunday morning put a lot more 2M and above contacts into the log. The high bands were good up to 1.2GHz where things fell off sharply. I caught W9SZ early on 432 after my morning 4 band sked with K0AWU in EN37 on JT65b and we worked the only 8 band sweep I enjoyed during the contest. I was glad that all that work on 2304 finally paid off! Ron W9ZIH gave me my only other 3456 contact, but does not have 2304. The morning went slow but steady with occasional excursions to call CQ or sweep the band on 6M and pick up some new multipliers. There were short but intense Es openings to various places to the west just about all day with only a couple to the NE and FL that I mostly passed over in favor of putting more grids in the log on the other bands. The afternoon wore on more like a normal contest with similar rates going into the log. K9ILT/R backed up their trek 10 miles to give me EN64 on 6 bands and Fran N2KMA helped me reward their efforts by working them family station style in that and the next two grids they hit. Last I read the rules its still legal for a home station husband and wife to work the same transmitters family style even though family rovers have now been ruled illegal in the mania to punish rovers for all manner of sins. WB8BZK/R and K9JK/R also helped put several new mults in the log. I finally ran into KF0Q/R in EN44 who later filled out 7 bands of new mults in EN43 and gave me my only other 2304 contact. Out here the rovers work hard for their contacts! After working a brief flurry of new multipliers on 6 from CA, AZ and NM, and couple of multiband stations for new band multiplers, I ran into KB8U right at the end again but this time we managed to get 6 bands worked before the final bell. As he said, we really have to stop meeting like this!
Justin K9MU called me right after the end to compare notes. He has an amazing score and really kicked butt on 6M, but in the end it was the Qs and mults on the other bands that edged me over a half million points. After the contest I combed my log to be sure all my 903 and 1296 QSOs were properly logged by call and grid. The last several contests I have been loosing 903 and 1296 Qs in the final tally and really have no idea why. Im sure that I work each and every one of them that I log since they are so precious and difficult to do with low power and would really like to know why this has been occurring. I can understand loosing some Qs on 6 and 2 to busted calls or grids in the heat of the battle and even a couple on 222 or 432 that the other station may have accidentally neglected to log, but its a lot more difficult to comprehend how 903 and 1296 contacts get deleted by the judges when you run the bands with the same station and are absolutely sure you have the right call and grid in your log! I also notice this is happening to the other high scorers too. If we are doing something wrong or making some other unknown mistakes in our logs like not nailing down the EXACT log minute simultaneously here because the QSOs take a longer time to accomplish and often require repeats of some missed info, then we all need to know this. It would be nice to get some feedback or a report out like they do on HF to let us know what the story is. We spend a lot of time coordinating and working these QSOs and we confirm that both stations are absolutely sure that we made it before we count them. So we can also take the extra time to synchronize our log times if thats whats being required! But the problem is we are really clueless how to correct it since we have no idea how or why it's happening in the first place!
-- BOB K2DRH EN41VR
The top of the tower stopped rotating entirely mid-May and on inspection the brushes were fine. Apparently a leaking seal in the gearbox had filled the motor with oil and the whole thing had to be taken down and rebuilt. I brought up a small power meter to assess the coax loss after the connector replacement and it was still horrible. Taking Ohmmeter measurements between center and shield then opening up all the connectors confirmed my worst fears; both the half inch Superflex and the 1-5/8 hardline were full of water and the copper was green with corrosion. Apparently the connector at the preamp JB had been leaking for months all through the system right down to the ground. All the connectors had to be reworked and I poured about a quart of water out of the 1-5/8. Id taken Memorial Day week off to work on stuff and luckily there were several hot dry days in a row for it to bake out. When it went back together it wasnt perfect and the coax still needs to be replaced before the UHF contest, but at least now I was able to hear the preamp again and push 10W out of the tower mounted junction box.
On the Friday before Memorial Day weekend N2KMA said she smelled something burning from the air conditioning ducts. I asked her to look at the amps in the basement and she confirmed the lights were out on the 2M amp and the smell was actually coming from it. Turned out the 2M amp control transformer had given up the ghost! A quick call to Henry and a new one was on the way. The new preamp control line installation went well, but an awesome 6M opening to JA using 1.5 KW on CW the Tuesday before the contest apparently blew up the new 2M preamp on sheer RF overload! Thursday night I replaced it (again!) and reconfigured the sequencer so it switches off the 2M preamp on both 6M and 2M transmit. A quick climb on Friday to make sure the 2304 connectors were still dry (one wasnt, it apparently takes a very long time for water to completely drain out of Superflex) and the station was finally ready!
Saturday dawned rainy and cold, often with bouts of intense precipitation static on the high 6M stack. I have two low 5El CC antennas at 20 specifically for such occasions, one fixed on FL and the other rotatable. The low antennas keep you on the air when the rain comes through and are also useful when the band is open in more than one direction. The contest started with a bang! The band was open in three directions, NE, W and SE so I established a run frequency and put all three antennas to work at once. The highest volume of callers was to the NE so the stack stayed there most of the time, but there were also a fair amount of callers on the other rotatable antenna that tracked the shifting openings from the West and SW and some from the FM grids off the fixed FL antenna. It was difficult to leave 6M and run the bands with closer in stations that wouldnt or couldnt be there later knowing that Id likely not get my run frequency back, but it was necessary to do it. I lost it several times and ran up the band searching and pouncing until I found another clear spot, often well over 200. The band was so full I worked stations over 300!
2M was a veritable ghost land! The only signals heard were from the multi ops and you could QSY stations directly to 200! Several times I checked 2M when 6M was short, but never lucked into any 2M Es like some others did. After 7 hours and almost 700 Qs in the log I finally had to get out of the chair since my eyeballs were floating! But what an amazing ride!!! (Mommy can I go again??? PLEEZE!!) The 6M Es continued for another couple of hours but rates fell way off and I started to comb 2M for more normal QSOs that were finally around before everyone sane went to bed.
The WSJT skeds were cooperative too, but rocks seemed fewer and further between on 2M than they usually are. I was amazed that there were practically NO randoms being done on 6M but the skeds with stations I didnt happen to work already during the Es usually went quickly. I did catch K8GP in FM07 on 2M and he QSYd me to 6M. We then tried 222 but I never heard them. Id called him earlier on 432 when he was fairly loud there, but they never heard me. Other stations have told me they were up over S9 on 432 earlier but by the time I got there they were just barely copiable. I finally crashed around 0800Z with well over 250K points in the log only to start all over again at 1100Z.
Sunday morning put a lot more 2M and above contacts into the log. The high bands were good up to 1.2GHz where things fell off sharply. I caught W9SZ early on 432 after my morning 4 band sked with K0AWU in EN37 on JT65b and we worked the only 8 band sweep I enjoyed during the contest. I was glad that all that work on 2304 finally paid off! Ron W9ZIH gave me my only other 3456 contact, but does not have 2304. The morning went slow but steady with occasional excursions to call CQ or sweep the band on 6M and pick up some new multipliers. There were short but intense Es openings to various places to the west just about all day with only a couple to the NE and FL that I mostly passed over in favor of putting more grids in the log on the other bands. The afternoon wore on more like a normal contest with similar rates going into the log. K9ILT/R backed up their trek 10 miles to give me EN64 on 6 bands and Fran N2KMA helped me reward their efforts by working them family station style in that and the next two grids they hit. Last I read the rules its still legal for a home station husband and wife to work the same transmitters family style even though family rovers have now been ruled illegal in the mania to punish rovers for all manner of sins. WB8BZK/R and K9JK/R also helped put several new mults in the log. I finally ran into KF0Q/R in EN44 who later filled out 7 bands of new mults in EN43 and gave me my only other 2304 contact. Out here the rovers work hard for their contacts! After working a brief flurry of new multipliers on 6 from CA, AZ and NM, and couple of multiband stations for new band multiplers, I ran into KB8U right at the end again but this time we managed to get 6 bands worked before the final bell. As he said, we really have to stop meeting like this!
Justin K9MU called me right after the end to compare notes. He has an amazing score and really kicked butt on 6M, but in the end it was the Qs and mults on the other bands that edged me over a half million points. After the contest I combed my log to be sure all my 903 and 1296 QSOs were properly logged by call and grid. The last several contests I have been loosing 903 and 1296 Qs in the final tally and really have no idea why. Im sure that I work each and every one of them that I log since they are so precious and difficult to do with low power and would really like to know why this has been occurring. I can understand loosing some Qs on 6 and 2 to busted calls or grids in the heat of the battle and even a couple on 222 or 432 that the other station may have accidentally neglected to log, but its a lot more difficult to comprehend how 903 and 1296 contacts get deleted by the judges when you run the bands with the same station and are absolutely sure you have the right call and grid in your log! I also notice this is happening to the other high scorers too. If we are doing something wrong or making some other unknown mistakes in our logs like not nailing down the EXACT log minute simultaneously here because the QSOs take a longer time to accomplish and often require repeats of some missed info, then we all need to know this. It would be nice to get some feedback or a report out like they do on HF to let us know what the story is. We spend a lot of time coordinating and working these QSOs and we confirm that both stations are absolutely sure that we made it before we count them. So we can also take the extra time to synchronize our log times if thats whats being required! But the problem is we are really clueless how to correct it since we have no idea how or why it's happening in the first place!
-- BOB K2DRH EN41VR
Photo Gallery
-
K2DRH on a Sunny Day
Back
