[NLRS] N0UK Summary (longish)

[Chris Cox, N0UK]

Entry Type:           SINGLE-OP ALL HIGH
===============================================================================
                Valid
                QSOs    Pts/QSO   QSO Pts   Mult
50 MHz           14      1         14        2
144 MHz          34      1         34        7
222 MHz          3       2         6         2
432 MHz          8       2         16        3
1296 MHz         1       4         4         1
10368 MHz        7       8         56        2

Total
All Bands        67                130       17

N0UK CLAIMED SCORE:   2210
===============================================================================

While quite a meagre score, I was very pleased overall given my very 
limited operating time.  However, the final 20 minutes were less pleasing.  
I suffered a power loss whilst trying to work Bob, K2DRH, on 222 and was 
unable to restore power until 2201 local.

Still, playing on 10GHz on Saturday was most rewarding.  For those that 
don't know, an urban South Minneapolis with no view whatsoever of the 
downtown skyline lends itself extremely poorly to working anything on 
3cms.  In the slightest rain or snow it is possible to work a few other 
stations, but past experience has shown that when it's dry it's not much 
use trying.  This weekend showed that to be untrue.

Thanks to the suggestin of Jon, W0ZQ, an ad hoc activity period was 
planned for the start of the contest with people working scatter off of 
the downtown Minneapolis skyline.  I figured that I could pick up one 
contact and a multiplier if Gary, WB0LJC, was on.  He and I live only a 
block apart, so we can usually work each other if no one else.  Sure 
enough his signal was booking in on "the mobile rig" which was still 
perched on the kitchen table for monitoring Dave's beacon.  But, in 
addition to Gary, I thought I could hear someone else too.  Yep - there 
was Jon, W0ZQ/R, operating from the excellent Burnsville Parkway overlook 
about 12 miles distant.  Woohoo - DX!  Jon's signal were actually peaking 
at S9+10dB.  Although I had once worked Jon from that same site during 
rain scatter, we'd never made it otherwise.  The lack of tree leaves seems 
to be a good thing.  Shortly thereafter, Jon moved to his 2nd location 
just to the north of downtown in EN35.  I could hear Gary working him with 
ease so I thought it couldn't hurt to try reorienting the horn.  There he 
was.  With the horn pointing due north and elevated maybe 5 degrees, Jon 
was a solid S3 - definitely enough to work.  Bear in mind, the mobile rig 
is my QRP backup station.  With only 400mW output, Jon had roughly a 12 dB 
power advantage with his 6W of RF.  Anyhow, he was in the log and I was 
very surprised to have TWO multipliers from 10GHz.

Well spurred on by this great success, I went on to log a total of 7 Qs on 
3cms.  This has exceed every other record of number of stations worked in 
one day on that band before, even with great rain scatter condx.

Again, this may not sound like much but I live in a fully enclosed area of 
town.  John, W0JT, mentioned in an earlier posting that he didn't bother 
firing up the 10GHz rig.  I would say that that may have been a bad 
decision this time out!  My horizon is much closer than 500m with my 
clearest view being to the west where the closest house is about 75m away.
I shall be trying this again.  You may note from the log summary above, 
10GHz was my second best band for QSO points and tied for 3rd in number of 
multipliers!

The second notable happening for me is that this was the first VHF contest 
in which one of my contacts were made on slow-scan TV.  Thanks Rich, KC0TJ 
for that one.

 -- 
73  Chris Cox, N0UK  email: chrisc at chris.org or Alice at BritishCarAndDriver.Com

 Home Page: http://WWW.BritishCarAndDriver.Com   http://www.pingjockey.net 
 MC04 IB/W "ALICE"++++ db+a l+ r+B wW cB+MSa+++sPV+++ CR++CC pS-W-  ma+R#$ 
 g---  M2m++ MUm  PtT-I+++i+i++m---M-Ss---W+wB++

  Come  and join us here in Bloomington, Minnesota, home of the Mall of 
   America, July 27  & 28, 2006 for the 40th annual Central States VHF 
    Society Conference which will be hosted once again by the NLRS.