[NLRS] W0IS & KC0OIA

[Mike A. King - KM0T]

Hey I just want to commend you guys on getting in there QRP.  It was a
pleasure to work both of you from 32 and 21.  In fact towards the end, as we
were working for the third time, it was a dupe, sorry about that.

I was not paying attention to the plans of everyone from the week earlier,
so I forgot that you were QRP.

I never paid attention that you were weak and fading into nothing and back,
cause the other rovers were doing that too!  Good Job.

More to come...

73

Mike - KM0T EN13

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Clem" <clem.law@usa.net>
To: <nlrs@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:10 AM
Subject: [NLRS] W0IS & KC0OIA


Thanks to all who worked us!

Our first experience in VHF contesting went fairly well.  A preliminary look
at our scribbled log reveals about 160 QSO's, using an FT-817 and dipoles
for
6, 2, and 432.  We had a 3-element beam along, but didn't use it much.  The
first time we stopped in EN36, signals from the Twin Cities were a bit
louder
with the beam than with the dipoles....until the wind turned the 3-element
beam into a 2 1/2 element beam :-(  Also, there is a definite advantage to
antennas that can be used without getting out of the car in January, so we
mostly stuck with the dipoles.

I think for the next contest, we will tweak the dipoles some.  Before the
contest, the SWR on the 6-meter beam was somewhat high, but good enough.
Unfortunately, the SWR went up as the contest began, resulting in reduced
power on that band.  Next time, I'll get the antennas working perfectly
before
the contest, which should result in them being good enough in actual use.

During the 6 meter opening Sunday, we did try working some of the louder
stations on the coasts without any success.  Even though they were coming in
well, most of them were S0, and our QRP was probably not audible at the
other
end.

2 meters was our best band.  I haven't analyzed the log much yet, but our
best
DX seems to be about 160 miles.  (That was from Des Moines, IA, to DM69 (I
think) in north central Missouri. )The best strategy for QRP'ers seems to be
to call CQ continuously in CW, as eventually someone comes back.  We also
worked EN13 (I think) from both EN32 and EN21, so I think that is also a
fairly good distance for our QRP signal.  We also had a couple of almost
QSO's.  Although we exchanged complete calls, we were not able to exchange
grids before the QSB set in.

There are a lot of hams on the air in the Eau Claire area, which resulted in
lots of contacts from 3 grids.  Unfortunately, we only worked 3 different
stations in Des Moines (although we worked most of them from 3 grids).  One
of
the Des Moines stations said that he hadn't heard anyone at all in Omaha, so
we didn't bother driving too close.  Eau Claire will definitely be in future
roving plans.

We didn't work too many Twin Cities stations from outlying grids, since we
were on 144.200.  In the future, I think we will publicize another
frequency,
perhaps listening at x minutes past each hour for calls.  We did get at
least
one contact into the Twin Cities from both EN33 and EN45, and also worked a
few Duluth stations quite easily from about 70 miles out, so the QRP should
work if we get away from the QRM.

A special thanks to W0VB who told us "the contest is over!" at about 10:04
PM
local time.  I was under the impression that it ran until 11:00 local time,
so
thanks for saving us from a lot of fruitless CQ's!

Thanks again for those of you who listened for the weak ones!

73,
W0IS & KC0OIA


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