[NLRS] Contest from EN37ed

[Bill K0AWU]

Good Morning Guys!

  What an interesting and fun contest this turned out to be from this 
part of the world. With all the attention (at least seemingly so) focused 
on the 10Ghz weekends and "quiet" rover activity, it seemed that this 
contest might be doomed as many tried to protect a more endangered 
contest. In the end, it does not seem that that was the case.

  Yes, even though most recent rover activity is WAY BEYOND my 
horizon, the absence of those rovers did show up in a marked 
reduction of both 432 and 1296 contacts/grids. The AU and AU/E 
bolstered the 6m and 2m counts more than enough to overcome the 
absence of the usual "south of the cities" rover packs. BUT there was 
no way to make up for the loss of those lost rover 432&1296 Qs.

  As per the "Ole Faithful" masterplan, I operated the contest 
uninterupted from its start until about 1pm Sunday ... relaxed for about 
an hour and then operated with "reduced" intensity until the end of the 
contest. I received a TVI complaint about 6pm that sure reduced the 
enjoyment of the "push to the finish". D___m mast mounted TV 
preamps!

  Excellent activity from the very beginning. Lots of stations to chase 
down and signals were pretty good really. Some outstanding. Just 
28min from the start, I have even already ran the bands (50mhz-
432mhz) with Dan N0URW, at 406miles and all on SSB!!  I would say 
that conditions were REALLY not too bad at the start.

  The 6m AU/E and 2m AU/E were "solar sent" and arrived during the 
normal quiet of the night. What a wonderful gift it was to be able to 
visit with Hank W0RLI on 6m AUE, as though he was setting in the 
shack. S9+20 with wherever the antenna was at that moment.  
Beautiful VE6, VE5, VE9 and W7 Qs. The AU was all 6m early and in 
the end did extend up to 222. Nice to work CO on 222Au :>)  First AU 
entry was with (Lefty, who else?) at 04:38Z on 6m and last for the 
night was with Bob K2YAZ at 12:09Z.  25% of the logged contacts 
were via AU, 41-6m, 19-2m and 6-222Mhz contacts. Unique grids are 
harder to count but no doubt were significant.

  Even though the usual rovers were missing for the most part, there 
was some rover activity!  Brock W6GHT/R was not to be denied, he 
activated 7 grids ( that I know of) on 6,2,432. Another local K0NII was 
intrigued by my homebrew 2m squalo, built one and went out 
unannounced and operatated 6/2 from 4 grids. VPJ/ and IYT/R were 
welcomed log entrys as well. 30 contacts or 11% of my contest  
contacts were from rover activity. A special thanks to those guys!!

  The end result was my 2nd best contest score ever, and almost met 
and exceeded my best. (Where was Ray N0UY or John W0LER??) I 
only need a couple more Qs .... Rats!!

   50Mhz ---  96 contacts  56 grids
 144Mhz --- 101 contacts 42 grids  (both new personal highs)
 222Mhz ---  29  contacts 15 grids
 432Mhz ---  34  contacts 15 grids
1296Mhz --    6  contacts   3 grids
10Ghz    ---     1 contact     1 grid

  267 Qs (Equal previous high)  132 grids (2 short of previous high)

  Contest total 45,540 pts

  Lots of fun guys. Thanks to all that looked north and called, again 
thanks to the rovers young/old or small/large... every one of you made 
"my" contest!!  Without you ... zero contacts, zero points and zero fun!

  Don't be stangers .... 144.200 is there all the time! 10Ghz is there a 
lot too. ( 10Ghz rainscatter 5-9 SSB  to Gary this morning.)

Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed