This was the first VHF contest I have operated in. I operated portable from Little Mountain, MS, elevation 600 ft asl. It is about 150 feet above surrounding terrain and is a stop on the Natchez Trace scenic parkway. I got a number of curious visitors throughout the weekend. At least one person thought the antennas were for tracking some kind of wild animals.

On 6m I used a 5 element yagi hanging from a tree about 25 feet up; on 2m a 9 element yagi on a 15 foot mast. The radio was an Elecraft K3 on a deep cycle battery running 10W.

I operated both days until about 8:30 PM local time. Saturday night I had to pack almost everything up and reinstall it again on Sunday morning. On Saturday 6m conditions were not very good: I could hear many weak stations, but only a few could hear me! On Sunday 6m was much better and I was able to get responses while calling cq. I heard both EA8 and VE7 stations but could not work either. Otherwise 6m openings jumped around quite a bit on Sunday, ending with a strong opening to the northeast Sunday evening.

I finished with 210 qso's on 6m and 9 on 2m. I never did work my own grid on either band!

The weather was quite nice for MS in June- not too hot, a light breeze, and no thunderstorms. This was a lot of fun- I hope to get out and do some more VHF contests in the future.

Tor N4OGW