[NLRS] K0AWU Jan contest report

[Bill K0AWU]

----- First ----- (saves time for time challenged)


----- K0AWU ----
--January 2007--

Band - QSOs - Grids

50Mhz - 53 - 22
144Mhz - 53 -18
222Mhz - 15 - 8
432Mhz - 22 - 9
902Mhz - 3 - 3
1296Mhz - 5 - 4
10Ghz - 2 - 2

153 total contacts ---  66 total grids

Total Score : - 15,048pts

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  Another January contest is but a memory. A mixed memory, but we are 
not in control of the propagation. 

  My first observation is that 2meters toward "The Cities" was really poor 
all weekend, Sunday morning during the MPS snow, almost non-existent. 
At the same time "Fast Eddie" VE3KRP was loud on 2m SSB and Barry 
VE4MA was not too bad on 2m CW.  


  About 6:45am Bob K2DRH and I worked easily on 6,222 on WSJT JT65. 
I could have worked him on CW, not sure if Bob heard me as  well as I 
was hearing him. 432 signals were not there at all (on tropo) via airplane 
scatter all I needed was RRs... the signals were very good but the aircraft 
induced doppler exceeded the software ability to decode except for one 
sequence that gave me Calls, Grid and Report.

  Sunday morning looked on the radar like it would offer some 10Ghz 
snow scatter chances... didn't pan out ... Gary was tropo only and no 
other signals were seen or heard ... d a r n .....

  I heard Wally W0PHD many times over the weekend. Wally was louder 
than I had heard him in a VERY long time. I heard Wally MANY times 
Sunday night when we BOTH were looking south. The same "strange" 
path first observed years ago with other Red River Valley ops.  

  Early Sunday afternoon I was hearing Erwin K8EB sequence after 
sequence with his great station calling CQ on 144.200 CW at 475miles. 
No luck in raising him... He has at least 3db on me in power.

  Sunday evening Dave N9TTX requested a 2nd attempt for a 1296 
contact at 192miles. Dave "hung in there" and the  contact was made. 
The conditions were highly variable. Our clocks were not in "sync", so 
long tx/rec sequences were used. Good sequence management would 
have made it easier. On several sequences Dave had the S meter 
bouncing pretty good... during one seq he was loud enough for SSB for 
about 40sec. COOL...  Congrats Dave!!

  Excellent 1296 signals from W0LER and N0JCF again ... Both of these 
guys do so well in here on a difficult band, contest after contest 
congrats...

  Gary W0GHZ was an EASY CW Q for my first 902 contest contact. Jim 
KB0CIM went portable and worked me on 902 SSB with his commercial 
battery powered IFR signal generator. Nice signal, Thanks Jim. Chris 
N0JCF and I worked on 902 SSB with many many repeats. My 10elem 
yagi prevented the same easy QSO that we had on 1296 SSB. That will 
change before June and EN37 will appear in many 902 logs. (Anyone 
have a 902 looper for sale??)

  Several of the local satellite ops decided to get involved with a contest 
and helped in increasing the available EN37 stations... 18 Qs made with 
EN37 stations .... cool ..... 6, 2 and 432. I think several of them were 
disappointed that they didn't hear more, but 5elem log periodic yagis at 
20ft have a tropo limit!!

  Very pleased with the "Saturday score" and Sunday again was a VERY 
HARD day with many hours or white noise and only occasional signals.

  Thanks to those that looked north... sorry to say it, but see most of you 
again in June! (These radios work without contests ;-0 ) ... or AU07 !!

73  Bill K0AWU  EN37ed