[NLRS] 2012 September VHF Contest Report from W0JT EN34js (L O N G)

[John P. Toscano]

Boy, I must say that August and September have been very busy months for 
Ham Radio contesting on the VHF and up bands!

First of all, I must offer my sincere thanks to W0ZQ and N0KP who came 
out to my home twice (last Saturday and last Sunday, i.e. the weekend 
prior to the contest) to get my 1296 MHz feedline problem solved. With 
their assistance, all the power on 1296 MHz is going forward to the 
antenna and reflected power is nil, as it should be.

Unfortunately, my output power is still very low on both 902 and 1296 
MHz, approximately 5 - 7.5 watts, instead of the 25 - 30 watts that 
these systems are capable of generating. This is most probably due to a 
lack of 2 meter drive power. Both of these transverters are sharing the 
same IC-251a 2 meter IF radio, which was modified years ago to bypass 
the internal PA and provide the low drive level (milliwatts) needed by 
these two transverters. But the feedline from radio to transverters is 
pretty long, from my basement to the attic of my garage, and full IF 
drive through 2 feet of RG-58 is not full drive through nearly a hundred 
feet of RG-58. I had intended to adjust the drive inputs on both 
transverters this week prior to the contest, but just did not manage to 
get around to it. And I can't even blame it on work, now that I am 
retired! Oh well, people warned me that once I retired I would wonder 
how I had ever found time to go to work in the past, and it is true. One 
of these days... But probably *NOT* this month!

So, anyway, I was active on 50 through 1296 MHz, plus 10 GHz. I normally 
don't bother with 110 GHz when operating as a fixed home station, since 
I am down in a hole surrounded by trees, but the rules allow the station 
equipment to be located anywhere within a 500 meter diameter circle, so 
I drove the tripod-mounted 10 GHz rig to a nearby street intersection 
with just enough of a view to the North that I was able to work Mel at 
Ridgeway (EN35); then later I carried it down the hill to the southern 
end of my property to re-work Mel in Farquar Park (EN34); and then even 
later I carried it back up to the near end of my driveway to work Glen 
(also EN34). Man, that battery is heavy! And getting old is for the 
birds! Too bad that the only cure found so far for old age is dying 
young, a cure I have not been willing to try out.

I never caught any Es openings on 6 meters, although allegedly the band 
was open to Florida for a short while. I did not encounter much 
enhancement of propagation of any sort, for that matter, on any of the 
bands. My maximum DX on 50 MHz through 432 MHz was 165 miles, and I am 
sure that K0AWU in EN37 did most of the heavy lifting to make those 
QSO's happen, especially on the higher two of those bands, thanks to a 
substantial hill less than a mile North of me. We tried (and tried, and 
tried...) to connect on 902 and 1296, but that just was too much of a 
stretch for me. My best DX on 902 and 1296 was 90 miles to W0UC, and 
even that took us two days to get the 902 MHz QSO into the logs. Thanks 
for your persistence, Paul. A close second on 1296 was 86 miles to 
N0AKC, but we failed to make the QSO on 902 in spite of trying hard.

It was definitely a weird sensation for my grid (EN34) to be a highly 
coveted grid on 902 and 1296, since the local metro big guns were not on 
the air this weekend.

Here is a summary of my contacts, subject to a more careful inspection 
of my log and dupe checking.  I used a simple Excel spreadsheet for 
logging purposes.  One of these days I hope to get a virtual Windows XP 
session running under my Windows Vista system so that I can resurrect 
the old VHF-DX logger to run on my system. But if that fails, I guess I 
will just have to learn a new logger designed to run in this 21st 
century of ours. Or just keep on using Excel...  :-Q

Band	QSO's	Grids	Pts/Q	Pts
50	26	8	1	26
144	32	8	1	32
222	13	7	2	26
432	20	8	2	40
902	3	3	3	9
1296	5	4	3	15
10368	3	2	4	12
Total	102	40	#N/A	160

Score = 160 points x 40 grids = 6,400 points total.

Rovers were very important, particularly with a shortage of big gun 
fixed stations within my reach. Forty one of 102 contacts were made with 
rover stations.  In alphabetical order, my thanks go out to:
   KC0P/r,  15 QSO's on 7 bands, in 3 grids
   N0HZO/r,  1 QSO   on 1 band,  in 1 grid
   N0LNO/r, 15 QSO's on 4 bands, in 4 grids
   W0ZF/r,   4 QSO's on 3 bands, in 2 grids
   WB0EBG/r, 6 QSO's on 3 bands, in 2 grids

Posting rover plans in W0UC's Google Docs spreadsheet on the web in 
advance was helpful, although not all of the rovers elected to do so. 
And not all of the posted plans were accurate, thanks to our old friend 
Murphy who seems to love to disrupt even the best rover planning. (Been 
there, done that, vehicle breakdowns on the road are definitely no fun!) 
Having your 6-digit grid location available also helps a lot for other 
stations to be able to point at you. Most of the time you folks had that 
information to make my antenna pointing less of a chore, and I certainly 
appreciated it. Thanks for being out there.

My final score was nothing spectacular, but it was enough to make the 
weekend an enjoyable one. (And I was very pleased to be able to chat 
with a few old friends for the first time in a long time. I guess that 
slow contest conditions aren't always *ALL* bad, at least for those of 
us who have been gone more than we've been here.)

The next few weeks are going to be plenty busy ones for me. My daughter 
is dropping in from San Antonio on Thursday (she's in town to be in a 
wedding). My second carpal tunnel outpatient surgery is on Friday. And 
the second weekend of the 10 GHz and Up Cumulative Contest is on 
Saturday and Sunday. After that, packing for the drive back to San 
Antonio (leaving MN on October first) will fill up the following week. 
Whew!! I may need all 8 months in Texas to recover from the next few 
weeks in Minnesota!!!  :-)

I sincerely thank all of those who participated in this contest. I look 
forward to many more contacts, particularly this coming weekend in the 
10 GHz & Up contest. I was very impressed with the caliber of operators 
that I encountered this weekend. Words like "polite", "helpful", 
"friendly" come to mind when I think back over this last weekend, and I 
am amazed that such behavior is associated with a contest, of all 
things! It gives me a nice warm feeling to be associated with folks like 
you. Really!

"Thank you" seems woefully inadequate. But I am at a loss for words that 
fully express the way I feel about Upper Midwest Amateur Radio 
Contesting and the participants who make it happen.

73 de W0JT, John P. Toscano
EN34js, June - September
EL09ro, October - May