[NLRS] EN37 Contest FUN!

[Bill K0AWU]

  Hi Gang!

   THANK YOU for "looking and listening north". This contest score was the 
second best score of ALL of my contests since I started keeping score in 
Jan 1998. So .... I'm "pumped" for the next one!   28 hours of operation and 
less than 3hrs of sleep made for a long, but enjoyable contest! 

   K0AWU  EN37ed   Jan 2003 ARRL VHF Contest Results  

      50Mhz ----  70 Contacts    27 grids      4760 pts
    144Mhz ----  53 Contacts    21  grids     3604 pts
    220Mhz ----    7 Contacts     4  grids       952 pts
    432Mhz ----  22 Contacts    13 grids      2992 pts
  1296Mhz ----    3 Contacts      3 grids        816 pts
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    TOTALs     155 Contacts    68 Grids    13,124  Points 



   I compete ONLY with myself, and started off with the old Jan scores 
written down and those were my targets. Well... I had exceeded the previous 
high in the first 6hrs, so then it was "Katie, bar the door!" This is due, to the 
most part, of now being QRV on 6 meters (Jan 02 was the first time with 4 
watts) and this was the first contest that I had the homebrew 200W amp on 
6.

  Activity and band conditions were surprisingly good here for Jan on 
Saturday, but  Sunday was HORRID until late evening. The grids worked on 
2 and 432 were right up there with the summer contests! On the down-side, 
6 meter tropo was nothing like what I have grown to expect as "normal".It 
was poor the entire time, except for the 2131Z-2303Z  E's Sunday afternoon. 
That opening was very regionalized here. (41 "E" contacts in 12 grids ... 
FM04-FM08, FM16-FM19, FM28,FM29,EM96)  

  222 Mhz (10 watts 15 elem yagi) looks very promising since it was a new 
band for me. I would have been able to work several more had we ran Sunday 
night. Attempts were made with KM0T and W0ZQ at mid-day times when 
conditions were poor. Everyone else I ran with were worked. (7 contacts 4 
grids). THANK YOU Gary W0GHZ, your old 222 boomer "rocks"!  For 
example, Saturday early evening I worked Eric KT8O EN34 with his 5watts 
and 8 elem quagi, no problem.

  Conditions came up great during the last hour and a half of the contest. 
W9FZ/R was worked in EN33 on 144, 222, 432, 1296 all with GREAT 
signals.  What a great way to "finish the contest"! The last 40min I looked for 
W0OHU, W0ZQ & KM0T for "reruns"on 222 and/or 1296, but no luck finding 
them. I heard Mike, but he was very busy.

  Repeated calls all weekend toward N0SRQ, VE4---, VE3KRP and the 
Milwaukee areas yielded only white-noise. Sunday night these and the 
Milwaukee area should not have been out of the question. I saw more of the 
"tropo bubbles" that I have seen in DM13 California and EN65 WI, than I 
recall during many other contests.

  Rovers KC0LBT (1Q), W0AMT (2Qs) and W9FZ (7Qs) were the only rovers 
worked. Day-time winter tropo and/or long haul rovers didn't produce many 
contacts for me. I missed ALL of the EN45, EN46 rover activity ... ouch!  

  There was a better distribution of stations on frequencies other than 
144.200 but still a lot of conversation by what appeared to be "Twin City" 
stations on 200. That seemed to be especially true Sunday night with the 
improved conditions, when several layers of stations could be heard on 200 
at the same time. Our calls to stations closer to, but outside of the Twin 
Cities, were I'm sure being masked, even though they were heard here. I 
KNOW that was a problem for KC0KVD EN37. John is 30 miles NE of me. 
With a lower antenna and 150 watts he really needed  "clear" frequencys to 
be heard. He did work Mike KM0T and several others for his all time best DX 
and contest. Congrats John!

  Thanks again and good DX! Don't be strangers ... some of use VHF/UHF  
ssb/cw at times other than the contests :>))

  Bill K0AWU  EN37ed