[NLRS] January 2012 VHF Contest Results - N9LB

[Lloyd Berg N9LB]

All,

This was my 3rd January VHF contest.

Enjoyed about 2 hours of 6 meter e-skip early Saturday afternoon before 
the band instantly shut down.

Next, I started working the local group but conditions seemed much 
poorer than previous years, 902 and 1296 conditions especially poor.

General propagation from my QTH near Madison, WI: good to the North. 
fair East-West, poor to the south. Missed many of the regulars - too 
many to mention.

Did work:
W9GA on the lower 6
K2DRH on the lower 6
N0AKC on the lower 6
W0UC on 5 of the lower 6

Michigan contacts with KF6A, KF8QL, K8DOG, W8MIL and K8MD.

Iowa contacts with N0MA, WN0DRC, N0GZ, WB0ISK

More contacts than usual to NLRS stations W0GHZ, N0AKC, W0UC, K0AWU, 
KA0KYZ, WV9E, KA9FOX, W9HQ, and K9WKW.
( Heard W9RPM and KD9NH on Sunday, but by then had too much ice on my 
antennas. )

Worked one rover, W9FZ/R in EN62, EN52, EN53, and EN63. ( Bruce, I tried 
to warn you about the ice storm - but I couldn't get a signal out, hope 
you made it home OK.)

Nice talking to "new guy" N9DG on the lower four ( probably 
line-of-sight ). Good to have another VHF/UHF station on the air.

Sunday afternoon I was put out of business early by ice on the antennas 
- ridiculously high SWR. Also ice-rain static made the receive sound 
like frying bacon. Oddly, the ice on the trees and fences didn't seem 
too bad.  Signal deterioration started around noon, and it wasn't 
possible to operate at all for the last 7 hours of the contest.  Missed 
the Aurora openings too.

I don't have a final tally or score as I also had computer problems, so 
part of my log is hand written and part in the computer.  This will take 
a while to
straighten out.

Hope others will post their observations and experiences.

BTW - I'm working on a permanent setup for VHF-UHF, which will replace 
setting up two temporary tables to hold all the transverters, switching, 
metering, etc. This will result in my being on the air more frequently 
than in the past ( for activity nights, band openings, etc ).  Also look 
forward to working you all in the spring sprints and beyond.  Hope to 
have my 2304 MHz issues resolved before spring.  The 2304 loop yagi and 
hard line have been up for six months, but my transverter issues 
continue.

Warning - I have QSL cards now and will be sending them out soon and 
will begin working on VUCC on all the VHF & UHF bands.

73

Lloyd - N9LB  EN52