[NLRS] August 2012 UHF Contest, W0JT

[John P. Toscano]

I really hate climbing on the roof of my garage to reach my 9-foot 
roof-mounted tower, but my 1296 MHz feedline had come loose from the 
supporting structures over a year ago, and while dangling, had become 
kinked, leading to a broken center conductor (infinite SWR). So, I "bit 
the bullet" and climbed up there this week and replaced the section of 
feedline where I believed the damage was located. I was able to confirm 
that the section I replaced was bad (open circuit), but apparently the 
initial jumper that attaches directly to the antenna (higher up that I 
was willing to climb this week) is also bad, because the SWR improved 
from "infinite" to about 5:1. Not surprisingly, although I could barely 
hear strong nearby stations on 1296, no one heard me on that band. So, I 
was limited to 222 through 902.

I had a lot of difficulty being heard on 902, and discovered that my 
transverter was only putting out 5 watts. Unlike on 1296, the reflected 
power was negligible, so the antenna and feedline were performing ok, 
but the drive level to the transverter is apparently not correct. Oh 
well, too late to try to fix that. Most of my 902 QSO's had to be 
completed by sending CW, although I heard SSB just fine. Sorry for the 
horrible quality of my CW on a straight key. I learned CW with paddles 
but the IF radio on that band takes only a straight key, and when I 
tried to add an external keyer to the radio a few years ago, it burned 
up the keyer. So, straight key it was. I keep promising myself to build 
a little switchbox to share the keyer among all three radios, using 
opto-isolators, but the "round tuit" remains elusive. I'll probably have 
the transverters interfaced to my Flex-1500 before I get around to doing 
it...

Activity was pretty low, and I did not catch any enhancement. Stats for 
W0JT, SOLP, were as follows:

Band    QSO's    Pts/Q   Pts    Grids
222       13       3      39      5
432       17       3      51      6
902        4       6      24      3
Total     34             114  x  14  = 1,596 points

Best "DX" was 165 miles to K0AWU on 432, and 90 miles to W0UC on all 
three bands. Average distance for all 34 QSO's  was about 38 miles.

Of the 34 QSO's, 10 were with fixed stations and 24 were with rovers, or 
over 70% rovers. Rovermania indeed! Thanks so much for going out to stir 
up a bit of activity.

The contest robot rejected my first log submission attempt because I had 
messed up some times and dates. Oddly, though the rejection came 
quickly, I have not gotten a confirmation that the corrected log went 
through unscathed.  Well, I'll just have to keep an eye open for that.

I don't know how soon I will be willing to climb up higher on the tower 
to replace the last section of 1296 MHz feedline. Hopefully, I can 
adjust 902 for more reasonable power output before the September VHF 
contest. But first things first -- getting ready for the 10 GHz 
expedition to Lake Superior in two weeks!

73 de W0JT
EN34js June-September
EL09ro October-May