[NLRS] September VHF+ contest

[goverby@charter.net]

This contest was another interesting operation from a temporary site, this
time an Eagan park (this location won't work well for the January contest :-)
It was a nice location and we'd go back there again.

We set up four masts:  1296 at 10', 2m & 220mhz groundplanes at 12', and two
19' masts for beams.  The masts were EMT conduit, 1" to 3/4" and one of them
on Saturday also had a 1/2" segment.  We bent one of the 3/4" segments --
probably with the support ropes while bringing it down after a quick test to
see how it went up.  On Saturday the tall masts were configured as 70cm/2m,
1.25m/6m.  Our 220 transverter didn't work so Sunday we left off that antenna
and put up 2m, 70cm/6m.

Compared to June, we only activated a quarter of the grids on 6 (no band
openings), but 2 and 70cm were about the same.  There weren't as many people
on for the contest, and Sunday afternoon was pretty boring.

This was our first VHF contest with 1296mhz.  We had fun on the new band, and
I was suprised at how much activity there was at times.  I put my 1296
transverter in a rubbermaid box on the mast with a 5' run of 9096 to the
antenna.  That worked out well.  My transverter's LO must be off slightly, as
1296.1 appears to be about 144.108.

We got several visits from neighbors and others passing through the park.
Several asked us if we were talking to aliens... that one has gotten pretty
old now.  Around 7pm Sunday, a group of 3 vehicles drove out on the field.
We're not sure what they were doing, but they didn't bother us.  A while later
a police cruiser drove out where they were and soon after followed them off
the field.  We were in plain sight of all of this, but the police didn't come
back and visit us.

I'm curious how others stack antennas.  We've been trying to space antennas so
they don't detune or interfere with each other, so we only stack a couple of
antennas on a 20' mast.  I've seen several "rules of thumb" for spacing but to
see for myself I ran some NEC2 simulations and it always seemed that they
interefered a little bit if they were closer than 1 wavelength of the higher
antenna, and it seemed to work better if the higher frequency antenna was
above the lower frequency antenna.

We didn't find as as many distant stations as we'd hoped, and only worked the
rovers when they were close to the twin cities.  We looked south quite a bit
on Sunday, called every now and then but never heard anything.

In the Cabrillo header, I listed:

OPERATORS: KC0IYT KD5EMB
CLUB: Northern Lights Radio Society

The ARRL General Rules for All contests, rule 8.3.3, says that the club
scorekeeper has to submit a list of all club members elgible to compete.  I
don't know who that is, but I hope I'll be listed.

Thanks for the contacts!

Glen, KC0IYT

RoverLog Score Summary, Using new rover rules:
Band	QSOs	Value	QSOPts	Mults
50	24	1	24	8
144	41	1	41	11
222	10	2	20	2
432	19	2	38	7
903	0	3	0	0
1.2	11	3	33	3
2.3	0	4	0	0
3.4	0	4	0	0
5.7	0	4	0	0
10	0	4	0	0
24	0	4	0	0
47	0	4	0	0
76	0	4	0	0
119	0	4	0	0
142	0	4	0	0
241	0	4	0	0
300	0	4	0	0
LIGHT	0	4	0	0

Grids activated: 		1

Totals:	105		156	31	

Claimed Score: 4836


Grid Maps:

6m
		en26
		en25	en35
		en24	en34	en44
	en13			en43

2m
			en37
		en26		en46
		en25	en35	en45
		en24	en34	en44
			en33	en43

1.25m
			en35
			en34


70cm
		en26	en36
			en35
		en24	en34	en44
				en43

1296mhz
		en26
			en35
			en34