[NLRS] June contest from EN37ed

[Bill K0AWU]

  Hummmm.... sure is different from "up north"!  No known 2Es here. I was 
absent from the radio from 18:59z-22:12z on Sunday, I wonder if it was in 
that time frame? I had a radio on and monitoring as I was eating and took a 
break. The squelch was set and I THOUGHT I  was monitoring 50.125 for Es to 
return, only to find upon my return that I was monitoring 222.100 instead. 
:-((

  As for the aurora, I have the feeling that I was too far north and "under" 
the aurora for most of the period. Not very many signals were heard and the 
signals were not all that loud. First AU signal, KM0T 2m at 21:52z  (also on 
222mhz) and last 00:15 WE9Y 2m. I perhaps worked W0ZQ at 00:22 on AU... I 
think I recall that being AU. Only 19 stations worked during that period. 
Interesting .. The AU peaked at about 20deg which is pretty "normal". Nice 
to hear Phil N0PB and Erv  K8EB again among others.

  6Es on Saturday were frustrating here, I had to "hunt and pounce", no luck 
trying to work a string, which was interesting. Sunday early evening was 
much better in that regard. That opening was centered in FN41 and 
interspersed with "7s" calling in off the back while running strings on 
about 50.136mhz. As usual, I was frustrated "having to work" 6m Es instead 
of digging in the noise for those challenging  weak VHF/UHF/Microwave 
signals. 6m Es is great for the point totals, but not as rewarding as 
working that weak one on 1296 or 2m. All summer long we can work 6m Es, but 
very hard to find any weak signal stations to play with except during the 
contests. Not like the old days when I was attracted to VHF working the weak 
stuff. To each his "own", I guess.

  Sunday morning 12:30am, Murphy visited the shack. I unplugged the Softrock 
SDR and hooked up the meteor scatter interface to the Delta 44 soundcard to 
discover MAJOR issues with the output of the sound card. In the end it looks 
as if both output channels of the Delta 44 failed. I was sure it was 
software at first and spent over an hour working in that direction. All but 
one MS sked was met in the end by using 2 computers for the JT441 and JT65b 
runs. One computer for Rec and one for Xmit. ARGH!! This failure may be 
related to plugging - unplugging 1/8" audio connectors with everything on, 
but not sure and that had been done 100's of times over the last 3yrs with 
no known issues. Ouch ....

  Highlights: K0MHC on 902 (new grid) and 1296 on a VERY difficult path 
through the local mountain and trees- trees- trees, K0KFC with a huge signal 
on 1296 as my last contest Q and 10Ghz RS Qs with N0KP and K0KFC.

   In general, except for the Es and AU,  there was VERY LOW activity and 
conditions were poor at best. I never heard any tropo beyond EN44.

   In the end my 2nd best June contest result, but far from "killer".

    50Mhz     201 Qs    96 Grids
  144Mhz       42 Qs    25 Grids
  222Mhz       10 Qs      8 Grids
  432Mhz       18Qs       9 Grids
1296Mhz         4Qs       4 Grids
    10Ghz          3Qs       2 Grids
-----------------------------------------

 Total            279Qs   144 Grids   47,270pts

  Thanks to all .... sure hope it warms up and we actually get some tropo. 
So far only 7days since the 1st of May where the high reached 70deg here! 
HAVE to have better temps for any tropo enhancement!!

73  Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed