[NLRS] Brief report from W9FZ/R for CQWW-VHF

[Bruce Richardson]

In a phrase, "tough sledding".

I thought 2m conditions were downright poor until one hour before end of
the contest and then things lifted to average or slightly above average.
For 6m, I felt we were always on the north edge of the area getting
activity. We would only be heard by the stations if they were S6 or
greater--it seemed.

We ended up not going to EN46 because conditions seemed so tough and we
were slightly behind schedule by that point.

Highlights: working N0AKC several times. Working KC0P/R and W0AUS/R
while they were at the St Charles grid corner. The big highlight was
working WB8BZK/R in EN51 from EN56 in the last hour of the contest.
Another highlight was hearing K9WKW (Oscar) from LaCrosse calling us
right at the end of the contest on 50.190. We didn't complete. We
dropped to 144.230 and could hear Oscar in there but K2DRH was calling
thinking we were in EN46 now and he would want the extra mult
understandably.  But we were still in EN56. I think Oscar is chasing
counties for WIVUCH and we worked him to give him Vilas just after the
contest ended. Another highlight was working K0KP in EN36.

Lowlight:  Not hearing EN34/35 on either band.  Oh well :-) .

We appreciated the regular crowd W9GA, WA9O, K2DRH and N9DG following us
around.

Now why were we SO weak on 6m????  Well, both my 6m and 222 amps are
Mirage and look identical except for the label that says 50-54 MHz or
222-224 MHz.  Unfortunately, we were using the 222 amp on 6m for all but
the last 15 minutes of the contest.

So, do you think a Mirage amp is "through" on receive?  Or do you think
it has filter elements on receive?  Do you think we hurt the rig (TenTec
526) by blasting 25w into a 222 amp from a 6m rig?  Do you think I hurt
the 222 amp blasting it with 25w of 6m RF?  Yeah, I'll be able to do
power output checks later.

So, even old dogs make boo-boos.

We still had fun!

73
Bruce Richardson W9FZ and Janice KA9VVQ


See you at the 47th Central States VHF Society Conference, July 25-27,
in Elk Grove Village, IL  Just go to csvhfs.org