[NLRS] Contest ..Oh what FUN!

[Bill K0AWU]

GM Guys  

  (Summary at the end)  This contest gave me the most contacts in a 
Jan contest (162, previous high 161)  and  15,762pts which was just 
50 pts short of my previous Jan high  and without AU or real Es!!

 "Oh what fun" describes the weekend here. I have "operated" the 
contests for 35yrs or so, but until 1998, it was always "fire up the gear" 
for an hour or so, hand out a few Qs and wait until the contest was 
over to visit with friends on the air. (Of course in those days, if there 
was Es on 6m I turned it OFF!!)

  Starting in 1998, I decided I would TRY to have fun and WORK the 
contest instead. Watching QST and knowing full well I could never 
compete, I came to the conclusion, it might be fun to keep score and 
to try to match or improve on my old scores. My reward would be to 
"beat my pevious score for any given contest".

  This contest started off NEAT. Gary W0GHZ and I had listened to 
each other on 10Ghz off of snowscatter north of Mille Lacs about 
30min before the contest started and expected an 10Ghz contact. 
This would have provided a 10Ghz Q with Gary in every contest since 
I got on 10Ghz. The snow however fell apart for Gary and I, no Q. 
BUT ... W0ZQ/R and I had a great CW 10Ghz Q to start the contest 
with. What a NEAT band!! A very fast start with excellent totals (for 
me) by Saturday evening, but then it slowed down. Well spaced 
activity all Saturday.

   Conditions were I think, "normal" January ... poor. At times nice 
tropo bursts would provide good signals beyond 400miles on 2 and 
222. I still have no idea what kind of 432 conditions we really had. The 
numbers are not horrid, but almost every 432 Q was WORK! I am 
almost convinced that the IC820H does not hear as well as it used to, 
after the Icom repair, but it did "work". 6m conditions seemed really 
flat too.

   Operations included the normal AWU mix .. 6,2,222,432,1296 and 
10GHz. Some WSJT meteor scatter as requested by several of our 
pals on the east coast (in the wee hours) and for the FIRST time in a 
contest, a couple of random WSJT meteor Qs and one EME Q at 
moon rise!  COOL... I was setting up early for a WSJT sked and 
noticed that it was moon rise. Spun the 2m dial down to 144.131 my 
friend Milos' normal frequency and there he was calling CQ. I worked 
him in straight sequences and was still early for my meteor sked. 
(600watts and 13B2 tropo antenna, learn more at Aurora 06) :>))

   Operated almost all night ... caught about 3hrs of "rest" .. in small 
cat naps. One unplanned one that cost a sked :>(( I sure hated that. I 
worked Marshall K5QE (TX EM31) on Es on 6m as well as Bill K0CIY 
EM25 (Sunday 18:46z). Marshall was excellent copy for several min 
but he was having problems with very high QRN levels.

  I too saw LOTS of calls I didn't expect ... COOL!!! I did miss several 
that I was looking for. Some of the missing KM0T, K2YAZ, W0LER. (I 
did hear one loud 2m signal from EN13, but I couldn't be heard even 
with 800watts)

 Some surprises, NN0Q EN25, VE4GLS EN19, KB0QS EN47. 

  I BIG Thank You for all the activity. Thanks to the rovers WA0VPJ, 
KC0P, N0HZO W0STV, KC0IYT and W0ZQ (10% of the Qs)

  Summary:
               
    50Mhz  46 Qs  21 grids   Qpts 46
  144Mhz  70 Qs  25 grids   Qpts 70
  222Mhz  20Qs   10grids    Qpts 40
  432Mhz  21Qs   10grids    Qpts 42
1296Mhz    4Qs     4grids    Qpts 16
10 Ghz        1Q      1grid      Qpts   8
----------------------------------------------------

  162 contacts   71 grids  15,762pts

Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed