[NLRS] EN37 contest report "I felt Powerless"

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

Each time I worked EN7n on 6m I called CQ on 144.200. Heard only 
silence, though I could imagine hearing signals one time, maybe they 
were a few dB below ESP. Though practically, the stations working short 
skip on 6 are probably in the wrong locations for 2m Es, those paths 
tend to be longer each side of the Es cloud. So Arliss was in the right 
place for 2m Es when I was hearing 8s. I heard K1IW/8 for hours it 
seemed like.

I suppose I need to get my 6m wire higher above the lightning rod 
conductor along the roof ridge, I heard plenty and worked nearly all I 
heard but barely 160 Qs. I did hear stations confirming contacts with 
FZ, AWU, ZQ, and UC and I heard UC direct or by back scatter. But never 
could catch their attention. I probably worked some new grids and states 
along with three countries. Even off the ends of my wire.

Early on I heard some Wisconsin stations on 2m but they weren't looking 
this way and I couldn't catch their attention with the roof mounted 
antenna. Perhaps roving to their back yards would have worked better, 
but only with 6m not open.

One rover in MT wanted me to post the contact, but I couldn't do that. 
I'll figure out score later, the scribbled paper log and my eyes aren't 
getting along.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 6/11/2012 10:12 AM, Bill Davis wrote:
>
>
>   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<<<<<<
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