[NLRS] June 2002 Contest Report (short & long)

[John P. Toscano]

The short version:
------------------
Band  QSO's  Grids
  50    60     28
 144    35      8
 222    17      5
 432    20      7
Total  132     49

Claimed score: 8112


The long version:
-----------------
Back on the evening of the 222 Sprint, just as I was about to look
for KF0Q/R in a new grid, my antenna rotator went beserk.  The
position indicator stopped bearing any resemblance to the actual
direction the antennas were pointing, and would occasionally start
spinning around the dial in a direction unrelated to the actual
rotation direction, and at a speed that I know the rotator itself
can't possibly match.  And at one point, it tried to rotate itself
past the full-rotation stop and I had to shut it off to prevent it
from inflicting more damage on itself.

A couple of weeks ago, during a severe thunderstorm/hailstorm in
Apple Valley, my temporary mounting structure for the 902 and 1296
antennas was damaged.  The fiberglas masts they were attached to
cracked, and the antennas started to work themselves loose as the
fiberglas tubing became more and more deformed.  Unfortunately,
between the weather, my horrible work schedule (including having to
cancel most of my scheduled vacation time prior to the contest due
to work demands), and various other things, I didn't get a chance
to take the antennas down until Saturday morning, and I didn't have
the materials, time, or energy to get them properly re-installed on
the tower after getting them down.  As it turns out, it was extremely
fortuitous that I did finally climb up there to retrieve them before
they fell to their death, because in the process I discovered that
my rotator-to-mast clamp bolts were starting to work themselves
loose, and the nut on one of the tower legs had also fallen off!  So
I at least got things back into a safe condition, albeit without the
two microwave antennas, and without a fix for my other rotator problem.

The good news on the rotator problem is that I did get some time to
diagnose it more carefully, and was able to determine that the
position sensor pot has developed two electrical shorts, one near
the East position, and one near the SouthWest position.  The SW short
I could easily work around, because the rotator has 450 degrees of
azimuth instead of 360 degrees, and the short to the SW is in the
overlap section.  So by limiting myself to only 360 degrees of
rotation, I would avoid that bad spot.  As far as the short at East
goes, I figured that as long as I knew where the bad spot was, I could
get pretty close to East by rotating slowly until the indicator dial
suddenly spun all the way around to the South.  And of course, I had
to make sure I didn't touch the preset button, because the rotator
would again attempt self-destruction as it would swing through East
and all of a sudden get wrong feedback on where the darn thing was
actually pointed, and try to correct its position based on wrong data.

So anyway, I was off to a very late start, with a funky rotator, and
with two bands missing.  I was also pretty physically exhausted from
the manual labor of the tower work, but rather than hasten my approach
to "old fart complaining about his health" status, I'll leave it at
that level of detail for now.

Knowing that I wouldn't be "a contender" this time around, I initially
considered just "giving out a few points to my buddies", but after a
few minutes of that, the bug bit me and so I turned on the computer,
started a new log file, entered the first few "freebies" from memory,
and went to it.  I didn't stop until 4 AM, and then only to grab 4
hours of sleep until 8AM local time on Sunday.

Later onn Sunday, I started to get back some strength and ambition, and
decided to try putting the 902 and 1296 antennas on my van, mainly to
give out a few points on those bands, and getting a couple of points
and grids for myself.  That turned out to be a big mistake.  I spent
a lot of time, but more importantly, way too much energy trying to
jury-rig the mounting system, since my last rover setup had collapsed
right after the end of a contest, as Matt KF0Q can attest (he even
has photos).  And after getting my new temporary contraption 90%
assembled, I realized that it was just too unstable to trust with
hundreds of dollars worth of antennas.  So I spent more time and about
the last remaining drops of energy taking it all down and putting the
pieces away.  (Compounding the problem was that I have more reasonable
sized, i.e. shorter, loopers for roving that are still unassembled,
and was going to attempt mounting the full-size home loopers on the
assembly.  But it also turned out that some of the leftover parts
that I planned to re-use from my earliest ever rove simply weren't
up to the task of holding these monsters.)  So, by that time, I was
both mentally and physically drained, and I decided to call it quits
early.  Oh well, there's always next time, I guess, until there isn't,
at which point it won't matter.  ;-)

I'll be leaving town soon, getting back just in time to abuse myself
at the TCRC Field Day effort in Empire Township as VHF/Satellite
Station Manager, so web site updates will be unlikely for the next
few weeks.  (Where I'm going, I will have little or no Internet
access.)  But I look forward to finding lots of reports from folks on
their June contest scores to add to the web site when I do return.

To those I worked, THANKS.
To those I missed, SORRY!
To those I disappointed, I APOLOGIZE for promising more than I
could deliver.
And to everyone in any or none of the above categories,
  73 for now from KB0ZEV