[NLRS] June 2003 VHF de WØJT -- v e r y l o n g version

[John P. Toscano]

Hello again to all.  I haven't scrutinized the logs closely, so the 
score I reported earlier (32,100) still stands unchanged for the moment.

I had a grand old time last weekend, and my score, while not in the 
"major league" class, was my personal best by a small margin, so I'm 
happy about it.  Especially happy because it's the first "respectable" 
score I will have posted with the new callsign -- until this weekend, it 
seemed like the new call was a jinx, I either didn't get to play in a 
contest at all, or I only got on for a short time to "give out points", 
or I had "less than successful" results in spite of plans to give a full 
effort.

We've been incredibly busy at work and short-staffed, so it's been tough 
to get vacation time, which I needed for station improvements, and 
though I requested the whole week prior to the contest off (months ahead 
of time) and originally got it approved, I got called back in to work on 
the first day scheduled off.  So I figured this was going to turn out 
badly again.  Fortunately, I only lost the one day, they let me have the 
rest of the week off as planned.

First major prep task was re-installing antennas for 902 and 1296 on the 
home tower.  They had been up there last year, but never got used 
because of lack of time to wire up the remotely-located transverters. 
Then in the late fall/early winter, the fiberglass tubing I used to 
mount them cracked, which loosened up the U-bolts, and they nearly tore 
themselves to shreds flapping around in the wind.  Fortunately, I 
managed to get up there and save them before much damage was done, since 
the winter was slow to turn severe last December.  The day after I 
retrieved them it snowed, and the last time I fell off the snowy garage 
roof trying to get to the (roof-mounted) tower, I vowed never to pull 
that stupid stunt again.  So a day or two later and it would have been 
too late.  Anyway, this time they went up on steel and aluminum, so they 
should hold together a bit longer.  Ironically, this is still only a 
"temporary" installation, since all the other antennas on the tower need 
to come down for upgrades.

Next task was to finish the modification of my homebrew transverter 
interface.  I did find a deal on a SP4T latching SMA relay with a 12V 
coil on eBay, and had plans to build a whole new interface box around 
that, so I could operate 902, 1296, 2304, and one more band to be 
obtained in the future.  I never did get around to that project, so in 
the short time available I decided to just modify the old box for remote 
access and "make do" with 902 and 1296 for this contest, ignoring 2304 
again.  I found myself infuriated by how many things you CAN'T get at a 
local Radio Shack any more.  For example, my box uses an 8-pin DIN plug 
and socket for the control conections, and I wanted to use another pair 
of male and female DIN-8's wired identically on the tiny remote-control 
box that would stay in the shack while the main box went up into the 
attic of the garage with the transverters (to minimize feedline losses). 
  Dang it, they don't stock them any more!  Sure, I could order them, 
but it's now Wednesday and who wants to put together a $25 minimum order 
from Digi-Key and pay for overnight shipping just to get a couple of 
stupid DIN connectors?  (The real bite in the butt is that I had bought 
a dozen of them a year ago, but "loaned" them to the TCRC to repair the 
voter on the 147.21 repeater, and then never got around to replacing 
them!  Arrrgh!)  Oh well, it's only a cable connector, I found something 
else to "make do" with.

Anyway, as it finally turned out, one thing led to another, and it was 
only an hour before the start of the contest and the transverter 
interface remote box was still not finished, wired up, or tested.  I set 
that aside temporarily, and went down to the shack to get everything 
else ready.  Went to boot up the "small" computer I use for logging (not 
my main computer that I do my heavy-duty programming on), and wouldn't 
you know, the secondary IDE hard drive has failed and the system won't 
operate correctly.  Arrrghh!  Fortunately, my work laptop has VHF-DX 
installed on it, and it was actually at home with me for the vacation, 
so I plugged the dead computer's keyboard and monitor into it and fire 
it up.  One problem solved.  A half-hour making sure that all the 
feedlines go where they need to go, the 222 transverter is connected, 
the blown power fuse on my 2M amplifier is replaced from the last time I 
hit it with 50 watts of drive instead of 10, etc...  Things in the shack 
seem to be basically under control, so I head back upstairs to try to 
finish up the transverter remote for 902/1296.  By the time I got the 
remote box finished and the family room mess down to a level that my XYL 
would tolerate, I'm already a half-hour late for the start of the 
contest, and when I go downstairs, of course, I hear that 6M is booming 
in and I've been missing QSO's and grids like crazy.  Hmm, I guess I'll 
jump into the pileup and wait for the first lull in the 6M action to run 
the last 5 wires from the laundry room into the shack and connect them 
up to the remote box.

I love it when 6M is open during a contest!  The last time I worked such 
an opening was in the June 2000 VHF QSO Party, when I earned my previous 
high score.  Unlike that time, I was not strong enough to "run" a 
frequency, I had to search & pounce the whole opening.  But that was ok, 
there were so many folks to work, and nearly all of them heard me on the 
first or second call.  I don't think I worked more than a couple of 
people down on 50.125, people spread out nicely all the way up to 50.250 
MHz.  I was also very pleased to be able to flip a switch to instantly 
change from the 5-element beam to a SQLoop horizontally polarized 
omnidirectional antenna (the predecessor to the current HOLoop from 
M-Squared).  That made it easy for me to tell when Arizona was fading 
out and Texas was fading in, then when they faded out and Florida 
started coming in -- 'cause I could hear in every direction equally 
well, decide where the propagation was, and THEN point the beam.

We finally got the first lull in 6M E-skip, at which time I went back to 
finish wiring up the remote box.  I was kind of leery about the whole 
thing, since neither of the two transverters had been tested by me since 
I got them back from repairs last year, and I certainly had not tested 
the new home setup at all.  As it would turn out, the 1296 transverter 
is still (apparently) weak on the transmit side, so once the dust 
settles, I will have to start testing that to find out what's wrong. 
Anyway, I made the last few connections, and it seemed to pass the smoke 
test.  (Of course, I could have easily been misled by the lack of smoke, 
since if something was badly amiss, the majority of the smoke would have 
escaped from the equipment located several stories above me, not the 
dinky little remote control box down in the basement!)  The complete 
extent of my test of the new 902/1296 transverter setup was to turn on 
my handheld Icom R-10 receiver, tune it to 902.1 and then 1296.1 while 
keying up the corresponding transverter, and confirm that some signal 
seemed to be escaping the antennas upstairs and penetrating back down 
into my basement shack.  Success!

And so I attacked the bands from 144-1296 MHz while 50 MHz remained 
quiet.  144-432 played pretty well, although I noted that my SWR on 2M 
was higher than normal, but there was nothing to be done for that at 
this late stage of the game.  I had been tempted to replace my ancient 
Cush-Craft 2M antenna with the M-Squared 2M12 down in the garage at the 
time I was re-mounting the 902 and 1296 antennas, but had decided that 
in view of my serious lack of time, I would not tackle that now.  In 
retrospect, that may have been another short-sighted decision.

Some things that tickled my fancy (one way or another):

-- hearing Art, KBØLYL, on 2M SSB instead of only on 2M FM.  Well, Art, 
do you think you'll break down and do it again?  I know the radio was 
only a loaner this time!

-- making my first 902 and 1296 contacts with Lenny, KØSHF from the new 
setup, first such contacts from home (only prior contacts on those bands 
were with portable or rover setups away from home).

-- nearly tearing my hair out trying to work Jim, NØOA, on 1296 when he 
was operating from a campsite only a few miles away from my home.  He 
said he was camped out "near the Apple Valley Zoo".  So I told him to 
point East, and I would point West, since I am 2 miles East of the Zoo. 
  Nothing heard.  Later on, during a quiet time, he was ragchewing on 2M 
with a new ham who was in his first contest, and I heard Jim say he was 
camped out in the Lebanon Hills Park.  Doh!  The park is due NORTH of 
me!  Yeah, he was "near" the Zoo, but he was just as far East of the Zoo 
as I am!  We pointed our antennas AT one another instead of parallel to 
one another, and of course we made the QSO with no further trouble!

-- running 50 through 902 successfully with Mike, KMØT, only to fail on 
1296.  Thanks for taking the time to really try hard on 1296 Mike, maybe 
next time!

-- actually working TWO stations in the Chicago area for a change -- one 
on two bands and one on four bands.  In every previous contest, I've 
pointed in that direction and called like crazy, never to raise the 
attention of anyone!

-- struggling, but succeeding, in making 902/1296 contacts with Gary, 
WBØLJC, who did a mini-rove just to activate the high bands for folks. 
Thanks for going out!  But 903 MHz **FM**??  What's up with that?

-- running into a "pileup" on 1296.1 late in the contest when I tried to 
catch Gary in his second grid -- but he and several others of you got 
away before I could get your attention!

-- working W9FZ on 902 (though not quite making it on 1296) by bouncing 
our signals off the downtown buildings!  I knew you guys do that all the 
time on 10 GHz, but I never imagined it would work on 902 or 1296! 
Bruce, I am amazed at how hard you tried to make the 1296 contact go 
through.  You are an incredibly positive, helpful person!  Thanks for 
spending the time, and for teaching me a new trick too!

-- finally (!) finding Matt, KFØQ in the very last hour of the contest, 
when I had just about given up hope of ever connecting with him.  50 
through 432 were no trouble at all, but boy did we fight the propagation 
gods on 902 and 1296.  Sorry, Matt.  I know you really wanted those 2 
QSO's, and I really wanted the Q's and 2 new grids, but it just didn't 
come to pass.  It sure was not for lack of trying.  Thanks for your efforts!

Other ironies:

-- I had bought a new Inrad IF filter for my FT-847 through Ed 
(WBØVHF)'s group buy a few months ago.  Everyone who has installed them 
raves about the improvement they make in the usability of the radio in 
crowded band conditions.  Ooops, I didn't get it installed before the 
contest!

-- I had bought a new Clear Speech external DSP noise reduction box, 
after hearing very favorable reports about its superiority to the 
built-in DSP noise reduction of either the IC-706 or FT-847.  I couldn't 
find the proper 1/8" mini-plugs needed to wire it up properly to my 
system in time to use it!  (Dang it again, Radio Shack!)  I was only 
able to do a quick & dirty test, with it feeding into only one side of 
my stereo headphones, and it does indeed seem like an investment I will 
be happy with, once I get it properly installed.

-- I had planned to build a switch box quite similar in concept to the 
NCS-3240 Multi-Switcher (described in the June 2003 QST, pages 66-67) so 
I could control speaker, headphones, microphone, PTT, CW key, etc. among 
three different radios with the flip of a switch.  Managed to round up 
MOST of the parts I needed, but didn't have time to build the danged 
thing.  And one of the parts I didn't find was the plug to go into the 
CW key socket on the IC-251a IF rig, so I couldn't hook up a key to it 
even without the fancy switchbox.  Some of those missed 902 and 1296 
QSO's would likely have been made in CW when SSB didn't cut it, if not 
for that missing plug.

-- 2 days after the contest, I volunteered to run the TCRC Information 
Exchange Net on the 147.21 repeater, because the operator scheduled for 
this week was having antenna problems and had a really crummy signal 
into the repeater.  Shortly before net start time, I went to swing my 
antennas towards the repeater site, and dang it if the rotator didn't 
freeze, and NOT in a compatible direction!  Well, I figure, no big deal, 
I'll just switch over to the ARX-270/N omnidirectional vertical.  As the 
net progressed, I watched my transmitted power drop lower and lower and 
lower, and the reflected power skyrocket.  I barely made it to the end 
of the net before becoming inaudible myself!  Dang, all this stuff was 
working well two days ago!  I guess I should take that as a sign of GOOD 
luck, not BAD luck, right?

Anyway, it was a blast getting "back into the saddle" for a full-bore 
contest effort.  Thanks again to all of you who made it so much fun. 
And as for the rest of you, well, maybe next time!

73 de WØJT