[NLRS] N9DG Sept 2005 Report

[Duane - N9DG]

Well this one was considerably better than the June contest
here. Conditions overall were better though not particularly
great tropo-wise here. At the open of the contest I was
hearing some 2M stuff out of a few FN0x grids but could not
get their attention. On the 222 and 432 bands the conditions
seemed very normal, not bad, but not enhanced either.
Frustratingly I could hear some to my east getting into some
tropo that I simply wasn’t hearing – but then that’s life on
the VHF+ weak signal bands. Powerline noise was less of an
issue this time too though my SW was pretty bad for nearly
50% of the contest. Even so I did get a number of lucky
breaks and nice grids in that direction when I could work it.
With the very dry conditions I noticed that nonspecific noise
in general was noticeably higher than when all the trees and
what not are soaking wet. During the Sunday afternoon
doldrums all that noise had effectively masked the weaker
stations. I also noted rather loud (S5-ish) Sun noise on 2M
for both Saturday evening’s sunset and Sunday morning’s
sunrise. I don’t usually hear Sun noise that pronounced.

AU and Es, what can I say, I did manage to pick up a number
of extra grids and Q’s that I would not have otherwise thanks
to both of those events. The AU was not nearly as strong as
June though, the Sunday evening 6M E was only for a couple of
hours and rather geographically limited.

Equipment: As you may recall I wasn’t particularly happy with
how well I was hearing on 2M back in June. As it turns out I
found a poor solder joint in the 2M transverter *after* the
contest, I’d estimate that my RX sensitivity in June was down
by 10-15dB – ouch!! (lesson learned – do not do a major
*elective* revamp of the inner workings of the equipment on
the morning that the contest begins!!). I also got a better
handle on the configuration and use of the multiple sub-RX’s
that I’m now running as well. The issues with impedance
mismatches of the previously paralleled RX IF lines was
basically resolved with some 4 port signal splitters from
Mini Circuits (P/N ZSC-4-3). With my current configuration I
only use 3 of the 4 ports, the 4th port is usually terminated
with a 50-ohm terminator. BTW that usually unused 4th port is
also very handy for doing A/B testing of IF RX’s.

It was also nice to hear more of the local’s get on and hand
out some Q’s for this contest (something that was totally
missing in June). And thanks to WO9U’s rove I avoided getting
skunked on 50 and 432 for EN42 (a mere 25 Mi. away), didn’t
make a single 222 Q for that grid though - ouch. WO9U and
N9UDO were the only 2 rovers that operated within 50 miles of
here and that was much appreciated. I did however do a pretty
decent job of picking up some rover Q’s from the various
rovers who activated the 4-corner near Milwaukee; it
definitely helped.

The bigger fixed stations in the NRLS and CVVHF regions were
pretty well represented this time too. And I also heard a few
of the rovers up that way but not well enough to work them
unfortunately. And it teemed like there was a pretty fair
level of activity from the land of SMC as well.

So overall I’m pretty happy with my results.

The claimed numbers:

Band   QSOs  POINTS  MULT
50      98     98     47
144    123    123     43
222     44     88     25
432     62    124     26

TOTAL  327    433    141   61053  SOLP - Badger Contesters

Duane
N9DG
EN53bj


		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 
http://mail.yahoo.com