[NLRS] KC9JTL-R in June ARRL VHF contest

[David Palm]

W9FZ kindly pointed out that I had mess up how I was figuring multipliers
for a rover run.  The reworked totals and score are below.   I don't know if
I'm going to be in country for the August contest--may have to be in China,
which is a pretty tough path for a UHF-only contest--but hopefully I will
still be in the USA and will be back out on the road for that one.

QSOs on 50: 41 18




 QSOs on 144: 64 14




 QSOs on 222: 25 8




 QSOs on 432: 24 7






47

154 53 10759
73,

David  W9HQ



On 6/14/10, David Palm <thepalmhq at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> After a rocky start, this contest definitely turned around and became a lot
> of fun.
>
> We were scrambling past our scheduled departure time to pull equipment
> together, so arrived late for our desired start on Granddad's Bluff
> overlooking La Crosse.  I'm grateful for the local hams that were monitoring
> and gave us contacts.  Don't know if we missed any due to tardiness.
>
> Anyway, as Bill Davis said, the major opening on 6 meters was almost the
> Grinch that stole Christmas for a rover station like ours.  Yes, we had 6
> meters and yes we could even operate while mobile.  But we were seriously
> outgunned, with only 100 watts into a coax dipole up maybe 8 feet.  So we
> only made a few QSOs on the drive up to the EN44-EN45-EN54-EN55 grid
> convergence.  And when we got to EN55, 6 was still banging away and 2 was
> dead.  We got a small flurry from the guys in EN44 and we thought, Okay here
> we go, but then silence again.  We tried for more Qs on 6 with little
> success and even tried calling CQ and announcing that we were in the "rare"
> EN55.  Nothing.  This was getting discouraging.  Man, I thought, if this
> stays like this tomorrow it will be a total bust.
>
> Then came Santa Claus, or at least one of his helpers, K2YAZ over in EN74.
> He caught us just after we moved over to EN45.  Worked him on 144, 222, 432
> (but not 6 meters, because I forgot to throw the IF switch back to 6 meters
> after we were done on 222.  Doh!).  Then I got the idea of just moving to
> the other three grids and working him from there.  He was a great sport and
> we did indeed catch him on those three bands in EN44, EN54, and EN55.  Thank
> you so much Bob!  You really saved the day.  Finally, feeling much better
> about the whole thing, we headed for Wausau where we sacked out about 11 pm.
>
> Sunday morning we assisted at the early Mass at St. Mary's Oratory in
> Wausau (www.institute-christ-king.org/*wausau*/), caught a bite of
> breakfast, and then fortified in body and soul headed back out to do
> battle.  We listened on 6 meters and heard nothing, so we decided that
> instead of driving south immediately per our plan we would go back out to
> the grid convergence and try again.  So glad we did.  It was much, much
> better now, with a number of stations finally listening on 2 meters.  So in
> the end we worked KC9BQA, W9GA, W0UC, N8LIQ, K9UHF, and several others as we
> worked our way back through the grids.  Now that's more like it!  We then
> headed south where we set up in EN53 to work some 6 meter e-skip and some
> "locals", then to EN44 where we worked a few more, then finally back to EN43
> for the last 45 minutes of the contest.  Whew!
>
> Equipment-wise it was a scramble to pull it all together, but basically the
> station worked very well.  I built a power distribution box with heavy fused
> cables coming from the engine compartment and PowerPoles out from there that
> worked like a champ.  We had a rotor for the antennas that was a huge
> improvement over the "armstrong" rotor we used last time.  And we had a 4
> element beam on 2 meters, 6 element "cheap yagi" on 222, 11 element "cheap
> yagi" on 432, and a shortened coax dipole inside PVC on 6 meters.  All
> antennas seemed to work pretty well.  I had an initial glitch on 432 from
> Granddad's Bluff--W9RPM couldn't hear me and since I could have hit him with
> a rock I knew I had a problem on that band.  Turns out I had a bad
> connection to the amplifier and, to top it off, the amplifier wasn't
> working.  Nice to catch it early.  So we were barefoot on that band.  But it
> didn't seem to matter much.  After that, all equipment worked as it should.
>
> I'll have a few more details and some pictures up on my blog later this
> week.
>
> Here's where I think we're at score-wise:
>
>           QSOs   Mults
> 50      41          32
>
> 144    64          39
>
> 222    25          21
>
> 432    24          19
>
> If I'm doing the math right, that looks like about 22533 points, which is
> our best contest by far.
>
> Thanks to all who worked us and 73,
>
> David  W9HQ
>
>