[NLRS] K0AWU Original Contest Report

[Bill Davis Jr]

  If you have seen the other simplified report and have seen enough about my contest weekend, "delete" :-]  Bruce and others have invested TIME in trying to determine WHY my two day and two hour attempt  to file the original post failed MANY times. I have some confidence that the reason has been determined ......

  --- A R G H ---

  Oh well, I have been told all my life that
somehow things "even out". Given some of the fairly recent outstanding
contest conditions (Sept 05, Jun 06 and Aug 08)  it was time for the
propagation Gods to get "EVEN". THEY DID!!

  Where  have
all the VHF stations gone? It seems that the number of guys on from the
MSP area in particular has plummeted in the last few years. The level
of activity combined with the poorest VHF conditions that I can ever
remember made for a very disappointing result from here. Do we have more people running lower power or small antennas than in the past or what? In visiting
with others, it seemed to be a wide spread opinion.(However I have seen a couple reports today that farther south conditions were not all that bad?)  I made more than a
casual trip to the yard to verify that the tower was still standing and
that the array was pointing where the indicator stated. Very odd, Bob
K2DRH was louder than many of the MSP area stations on many occasions
over the weekend. About sunset here, the high pressure system arrived
and replaced the drizzle with crystal blue cool air. Once that air mass
arrived, the conditions to the west (and only the west) improved to
really quite good conditions. NT0V was worked on 6,2,222 and 432 in the
last 45min of the contest. Dennis was very nice copy through the high
terrain on 6 and 432 in particular. I was able to work him on 222 SSB
also, but NO margin there at all. Wally W0PHD "bubbled up" nicely on
432 SSB for an easy contact were earlier in the weekend I couldn't even
detect him on 432 CW it was so bad.

  Early Saturday I worked Eddie VE3KRP on 2 and 432 with no difficulty and that is not always the case. Bruce was really nice copy from EN57. So in that direction it was better that elsewhere on saturday.

  Bob K2DRH was a struggle
on 222 and 432 JT65B - WSJT on Sunday morning, the signals SO weak.
Whats with that?? I also had many weak signals in the noise on 2m that
required so many repeats. I am beginning to have some concern about my
hearing. Headphones helps some, but those really weak ones seem to be
more and more difficult for me to copy. I have played with receive
audio equalization to a considerable degree trying to improve the
readability of weak signals on the SDR1000 based 2m station.

  1296 was a struggle and I do mean a struggle. Only KB0CIM and KI0LE were worked. Was it the drizzle???

 
Hats off to the rovers ... WA0VPJ/R accounts for 12Qs, KA0IYT/R for 6Qs
and W9FZ/R for 4Qs, totaling  18% of my QSOs.. On top of that Gary
W0GHZ/R was worked in 3 grids on 10Ghz while he and his bride were on a road trip. EN37 stations contacts totaled 25 in number!! I
think that has to be an all time high and accounted for 20% of my
total. 

  Highlights:

  (1)  EN57 QSOs with Bruce on 2m
- 902MHz. I could see him on 1296, but conditions did not allow a QSO
there. A new grid on 222,432,902.

  (2)  Nice signals of NT0V Sunday late, especially the signals on 6,222 and 432. 

  (3)  Another sweep with Jim K0MHC including 10Ghz. So much for our "impossible" path :-]

  (4)  KI0LE -- a sweep on all common bands, including 1296.

  (5) Nice Qs with N9ISN on 6,2 and 432 Late Sunday

  (6)  Any and all 10Ghz QSOs

  (7)  Ed N8LIQ in EN56 appearing in the logbook again on 6 and 2m. The W9FZ/R operations helped with that I bet.

  (8)  R O V E R S !!



  Results:  (  Lowest Sept total since 2002!  )

               50   --  30   --  17 Grids          2130 pts
              144   --  47   --  20 Grids          3337 pts
              222   --  12   --  10 Grids          1704 pts
              432   --  25   --  14 Grids          3550 pts
              902   --   2    --   2 Grids            426 pts
            1296   --   3    --   3 Grids            639 pts
            10GHz  --  5    --   5 Grids          1420 pts 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Totals            -- 124  --   71 Grids   --   13,206 points 

73 Bill K0AWU  EN37ed