[AK-VHF] June VHF

[Brandon Clark]

Hello group,
I wanted to thank everybody on the mailing list who was able to throw me a
few contacts during my rover route this past weekend. I wasn't sure how
much activity to expect for my first time up here, but it turned out to be
a very, very fun day.
I definitely had some lessons learned from the event. Number one would be
to try and avoid losing two hours of Contest time by driving through (RF
impenetrable) mountains. People really were not kidding when they mentioned
the RVs and tourists as a traffic problem driving between Anchorage and
Soldotna. Still, it was fun and a good lesson learned.
Another lesson was about the trees. You're going to laugh when you read
this, but this was the first time I've actually struggled with trees during
a VHF contest. In California we just didn't have any of those, lol. Too
dry. But foliage filled trees are definitely not your friend at VHF.
I also need to find some better operating locations north of Matanuska. By
the time I got up by Talkeetna there wasn't anybody on the air locally, and
I couldn't get anything resembling line-of-sight back towards Anchorage to
deploy my yagi antennas.
There are a few more events coming up this year that I'm planning to do.
August has the 222 MHz and up contest, July has the CQ worldwide VHF, and
then there is another VHF contest in August. Stay tuned for announcements
about those events, and thanks again.
73
Brandon