[NLRS] EN37 contest report "I felt Powerless"

[Bill Davis]

 Good morning all

   That was "interesting", another June- 6 meter event. Thank heavens we had a brief period of time early without the 6m Es where we could work a few of the rovers on the bands above 50MHz. Once 6 meters opened the activity elsewhere was flat GONE.

   I spent the contest casually working a few guys on 6m while watching 2m on the panadapter hoping for some contest activity or perhaps 2m Es. Conditions seemed to be POOR here. I never heard Bob K2DRH the entire contest except for our Sunday morning schedule. For our schedules, conditions on 6m CW were very poor, 2m CW 5-3-9, perhaps SSB would have been "ok" , 222 was very poor on CW, but quite good on  WSJT 65B and 432 was almost nonexistent, We made it on 432, but it was not easy at all even with JT65.

  I swept the bands with John WA0VPJ/R Saturday at all 4 grids, worked Mel and Carol a few times as well as Glen a couple of times and Jon ZQ/R. Speaking of ZQ, we had a 10GHz shed Sunday morning 7:30am with 30sec intervals. Right on the "tick" Jon was BOOMING in 25db above the noise on 10,368.100 from the Buck hill "north knoll". I didn't even hit the key, went straight to SSB and we had a very nice SSB rag chew for 5 min or so.  Oh so Very Very nice!!


Caught Dennis NT0V for Qs on 4 bands ( 6,2,222,432) and Barry VE4MA on 4 bands (2,222,432,1296) K0MVJ and K0KP in Duluth were active as well, good to hear them. Never heard Wally W0PHD or Ray N0UY.

  Worked W0UC and N9ISN EN44 mid afternoon Sunday, other than K9MU they were the ONLY signals heard from WI  the entire contest. Paul's signal on 1296 was S4, the best I have heard him in years on 1296.


 Sunday around 6pm,  Barry VE4MA and I worked on 10GHz rain scatter as the weather front approached. Within 20min the WX overran us and we lost all AC power. That was the end of the contest here. So I lost the last 3 1/2hrs with 6m wide open to the east and perhaps elsewhere. The front was a non-event by the time it reached us, maybe a 35-40mph breeze for 30 sec, but enough for a tree or trees to take out the power lines snaking  through the back woods. Power was not restored until 2am this morning. 


  In the end, the 3rd best June contest here in the last 15yrs, but the total score could have been much higher with 6meters being open into new grids as the power failed. No 2m Es were observed here, but it appears that that occurred elsewhere during our power outage.

  Thanks for those that looked toward EN37 to include all of us up this way in your contest plans. Please don't be a stranger in your hamshack until the next contest, make RF noise!


  End results of K0AWU -- EN37ed June 2012 VHF Contest
Band	Qs   Grids   Points 50    368    142    69003  
144     34     18     6358 
222     12     10     4488 
432	17     10     6358 
902      1      1      561
1296	 4      4     2244  
10Ghz    3      2     2244  Total   440 Contacts  187 Grids   91,256 points  <<<<<<