[NLRS] K0MHC - VHF QSO Party results - "Patience"

[Jim Froemke]

PATIENCE was the theme of the Sept. VHF QSO Party this year!
As Dennis (NT0V) asked: "Do you have wind, rain, fog or cool temps over
there?" The answer was: "yes!". The BAD news was that the weather was
challenging. The GOOD news was that the atmospheric noise was drowning out
the power line noise (most of the time). The one redeeming characteristic of
my old FT-847 is that it has a great noise blanker. The intermittent power
line noise (from a nearby 50 KV transmission line) pretty much covers 6, 2
and 1.25 meters when it's on.

Overall I was encouraged by the rover participation. WA0VPJ/R, KC0IYT/R,
W0ZQ/R and Bill (N0LNO/R) who showed up unannounced in my neck of the woods
to give out 14 Qs from 5 grids. What a great surprise! Sorry that I missed
Bruce (K9FZ), Gene (N0DQS) and any others that were out there in the noise
level. The problem up here in the sticks is that I usually don't work many
of the nearby grids. Of the 9 "local" grids I usually have no contacts in
4-5 of them.
The growing number of multi-op stations is also an encouraging trend. My
hats off to Terry (W0VB) for taking a stab at it this time. We need to
encourage more multi-ops.
The Northwest stations turned out in greater numbers this year. However we
didn't hear from several of them that we had contacted earlier. The
Northwest calling frequency (144.220) was busy sometimes and too noisy to
tell during other times.

SATISFACTIONS included getting 222 working again (thanks to DEMI and TE
Systems), making all but one of the 6 meter contacts, FINALLY making 1296
with Wally (W0PHD) and making the "impossible" bank shot with Bill (K0AWU)
on 10 GHz.

DISAPOINTMENTS included working only 3 Qs on 2304 and NONE on 3456! There
seemed to be an invisible wall on these two bands whereas 10 and 5.7 GHz
seemed to do much better under the same conditions and paths.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS includes reduction of power line noise, alignment of
rotors, repairing pre-amps, transceivers frequency stabilization,
transceiver replacement and antenna tweaking.

AWARDS:
- Most Patient Operator - Glen (KC0IYT/R) for the many Qs and taking the
extra time to try working the looper bands from difficult locations and
going back into EN33 when I missed him the first time. Thanks again Glen! 
- Most Productive Ggigahead - Jon (W0ZQ/R) who was persistent with 5.7 and
10 GHz
- Longest Distance Operator - Todd (KC9BQA) in EN63ao on 222 and 144 before
the invisible wall went up

GOALS: Well 2 out of 3. I had hoped to improve on previous results by
working 200 Qs, 100 grids and 30K points for this contest. Thanks to Jon
(W0ZQ) and several others for helping finalize the log (VHFLOG v3.56). I
ended up deleting and then re-entering some of the Qs to clear up several
duplicate false positives. Most have been a data entry problem.

Thanks to all for the activity.

73, Jim
Lake Miltona, MN
EN26ha

SINGLE-OP ALL LOW                              MN Section

    Band       QSOs X pt =  QSO pts.  X   Grids   =     Points
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    50         41     1      41            18            738 
    144        58     1      58            24            1392 
    222        21     2      42            13            546 
    432        33     2      66            20            1320 
    903        9      3      27            8             216 
    1296       13     3      39            9             351 
    2304       3      4      12            3             36 
    5760       1      4      4             1             4 
    10368      5      4      20            5             100 
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    TOTALS     184           309           101           31209 

                           Claimed score =  31209