01/21/2008 | WB2AMU As with other ARRL VHF Contests, I operated the January event in the QRP portable catagory from a hill located in Central Long Island in grid FN30.

Having done this for over ten years and enduring snow storms and cold weather for the January event, it was a pleasure to see the temperature around 35 degrees F on Saturday afternoon. It was also a real pleasure to have a good Sporadic-E opening present into Florida from the beginning of the contest! I was able to work 14 different Florida stations in 8 different grids over the next two hours, raning from NJ2F in southern Florida, up to AC4TO in northern Florida. It was one of the best Sporadic-E openings that I had experienced during my years in participating in the January contest in terms of area that was covered and duration. What was great was that I was able to work the Florida SSB stations using SSB and not have to resort to CW, because of my QRP power levels.

On Sunday morning, the weather had turned significantly colder with strong winds. Overnight, we had a dusting of snow that made for some nice photos. The bands were not so great on Sunday morning but there was a marginal tropo opening from my area in Long Island into Maryland when I was able to work K8GP in FM18 on Two Meters by calling him on CW. 432 MHz and 220 MHz were only good for working strong stations located within a 50 mile radius as there was no enhancements like there was in the September VHF contest event. Eventually, there was too much wind that was knocking over my antennas and few stations to work, so I finished up my effort by mid-morning.

I worked over 50 stations in 22 grids, thanks to the Sporadic-E opening into Florida on Saturday. -- WB2AMU