[NLRS] June VHF contest from EN37ed

[Bill Davis Jr]

GM All

  I enjoyed the contest and the contest total points were
very satisfactory. It was my second highest June contest since I
started really "operating" the contests in 2002. The highest point
contest was of course the June 2006 "Contest of a Lifetime" with the
huge 6 and 2m Es. It seems unfair to compare any contest to that year.

 Again
I am NOT a fan of 6m Es during a VHF contest, but this time it provided
activity that filled much of the daylight periods. A very good variety
of grids and areas, East Saturday and west Sunday. Two out of every
three six meter QSOs were unique grid squares. I only attempted a
couple of brief "strings", mostly tuned and pounced. 

 Activity
above 6m seemed to be DOWN and QSOs were hard to find. Everyone working
6m, conditions or just not on? But conditions seemed strange. Barry
VE4MA and I tried 2,222,432 on Sat and neither of us heard a peep.
Sunday afternoon we worked on 432 with little trouble and really struggled for a 2m QSO, both CW. Heard nothing on 222. The 2m heading
was very broad at both ends. I assume because of the fact that the 2m
antenna is shooting into the ground less than a mile away due to
elevation to the NW. 432 on the other hand peaked nicely. BUT to the
south conditions seemed much better. Many "usual" calls are missing
from my log. Good activity in EN37 saved "my bacon" on 6-432 numbers.
Thanks go out to W6GMT, KC0UIU, K0NII/R, N0OE, WB0TDV, KC0KVD and a brief
appearance by KB0CIM.

  Saturday Jon W0ZQ/r had some great 902
and 1296 signal strengths from those outstanding rover locations.
Sunday morning Bob K2DRH and I ran 6-432 on digital (WSJT) to complete
a weak sig sweep. Looked like we could have worked on 2m CW, but we were
set up for digital, 6, 222 and 432 were weak with QSB. By late
afternoon I saw good signals for prolonged periods of time from K2DRH,
N0URW and N0AKC on 2m SSB. 

  Almost no QSOs from W9 land ....
very odd. No idea of the activity level down that way for the contest
or if it was just bad conditions and antennas not in the right
direction at the right time. I looked and called that way A LOT.

 
Saturday working W0ZQ/r was a BLAST with the WX systems that rumbled
through our area. Jon and I worked RS on 10Ghz in each of his 4 grids.
I also briefly saw Joe AI9Z/9's 10Ghz signal on Mt Brockaway EN67al
(266miles) on the Softrock IF. Sad to say, the signals were brief and
disappeared before any QSO was attempted. The WX system had some good
development (around 20k), but just not enough. W0AUS had a great 5-9+ FM signal on 10Ghz RS shortly after
the contest started off of a cell 30miles south of me. The storm related QRN sure didn't help the "low bands" Sat afternoon however! 

  Attempting to make sense of the "numbers", I looked at how the raw grid/QSO numbers compare to my previous June contests since 2002. I hope those that are interested can understand how I have described the results.

                                                         June Contests                    June Contests                    Data
  Band    Grids    QSOs    Points             Grids / High / Rank              QSOs / High / Rank            2002-2009
    6       109      162      27054              109 / 162 / 2nd                 162 / 626 / 2nd
    2        19        45        7515                19 / 41 / 4th                    45 / 109 / 7th
 222        10        20        6680                10 / 15 / 4th                    20 / 28 / Tie 3rd
 432        12        26        8684                12 / 18 / 4th                    26 / 34 / Tie 4th
 902        
6         9         4509                 6 /  6 / Tie
1st                  9 / 6 / 1st                 ( <-3yrs data )
1296         6       10         5010                 6 / 8 / Tie 3rd                  10/ 10 / Tie 1st 
10Ghz       5         7         4676                 5 / 4 / Tie 1st                    7 / 5 / 1st
-------------------------------
Total      167      279     64,128                My 2nd highest Point total for June contest


  Thanks to all that roved and operated the contest. Without participation, the white noise wins! I operated the entire contest period except for a bit of sleep between 2:30 and 5:30am Sunday morning. The 279th contact was made in the last 20min of the contest and that ties the second highest number of QSOs for me in the June contests. Thanks K0AJL for that "important" QSO ... I feared I was going to fall short, by one QSO!!

73 and good DX   Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed