[MAMS] NE8I/r Jan VHF results

[Lloyd Ellsworth]

Claimed score : 9,010 pts. 71 Q 764 miles, 22 operating, driving hours. Including 2 hours walking around the HP swap with HT calling CQ contest, on a few appropriate simplex FM channels. Only equipment problem was 902. Saturday worked fine. In the cold Sunday, Oscillator, was all over the band. Back on the bench, works fine. Rover, blower fan quit, so no heat. Don't ask. Saturday, NW Michigan. Rain and snow, 40 degrees. Sat PM, bad storm. So, went home early to sit it out. 1/8 inch layer of freezing rain, under 2 inches of blowing snow. Winds hit 50 MPH. Driving Sunday AM. Trecherous. 5AM 12 degrees. Snow and ice covered everything. Including all road signs. If youre dead recogning was good, good. Sunday, what road plow service? Budget cuts. Until south of a line from South of Saginaw, South of Big Rapids, which was then dry hard roads, and not much snow. North of that line, very slow difficult driving. Typically, 2 ruts, full of ice. Hope they knew
 where they were going. SE Michigan, heard two stations. Worked one, not the other. Heard 2 Ohio, and one VE3. Worked neither. Problem with running low power on 2M. Hard to attract attention. Best activity, was in SW Michigan. Tons of 9's, and 9 land activity. Problem Sunday, the game curse. Got into location. Game started, activity evaporated. Game ended, activity slowly came back. Wonder if they know about VCR's, or TIVO? My best route this year, would have been through 9 land. Propagation, quite a bit of short sporadic stuff on 6M. 2M+ dead band. Very little activity above 1296. Thanks to all, who heard and worked me. 
 
73, Lloyd NE8I/r
EN73 etc