[NLRS] EN37ed Contest report

[Bill Davis via NLRS]

GE All
   Very interesting and fun contest really. The ROVERs made the contest once again. A rough count yields the following:

W0ZQ/R -- 35 QSO'sKC0P/R  -- 14 QSO's
N0HZO/R -- 14 QSO'sK0BBC/R -- 4 QSO'sKC0IYT/R -- 2 QSO'sKC0RA/R -- 2 QSO's
Total Rovers +/-  71 QSO's   41.5% of all QSO's
  A very good showing from the N and NE part of the state with some of the northern calls being: W0W, N0KKT, N0EO, N0RCT, KC0UDO, N0UJJ, K9MU/P (Wis), N0IM, W6GMT, KB0CIM, W0LWU, K0CN, WB0TDV. A great turnout. Never heard W0PHD or NT0V. THANKS guys for getting on and making Qs.

  Conditions for the most part were nothing to "write home about". N4PZ was very weak on 432 at 7:30pm Sunday night, Steve is usually much better. Sunday morning 6:30am Bob K2DRH was quick QSOs on 6 CW and 2m SSB, but 222 and 432 required WSJT, 222 was very easy and 432 was just at the margin here and required 20min to complete. Barry VE4MA and I worked on 2,222,432 and 902 without too much difficulty Sat mid-day. He had SWR issues on 1296. Mike KM0T was a tough Q on both 6 and 2m. He is on the other side of the mountain and through the trees for several miles before that, never a slam dunk. Great to get you in the log again Mike.

  902 and 1296 were BIG WINNERS this contest. I set a new high number of QSOs on 902 (13) and tied my old high of 14 on 1296! Fun to see that. Mel, Carol and Chris N0JCF provide the necessary Qs that are not always there. All of those were SSB even :-)

  144.200 was less useful as a calling frequency Saturday and Sunday until about mid day, than last contest. Given this contest I am not sure how big a factor that was, perhaps not as much as some contests in the past. It would have been a bigger factor had more stations been on. Activity seemed low, but the rovers and the home stations that were on provided pretty good activity levels with the exception of Sunday afternoon between rover stops and after the rovers were "in the barn". Electronic posts  impact here was minimal, but welcomed. Thanks Paul for your NLRS "chat line". Perhaps 10 Qs might have been a result of posts. I would not have worked N4PZ or K0BBC/R without the posts for example. I saw Paul's post about K0BBCs sigs from EN15 that got me looking for them. 
  VERY LIMITED 6m Es made it a weak signal VHF/UHF/Microwave contest. In fact, this was the lowest number of 6m QSOs and grids of any June contest I have operated in the last 15yrs. That makes it tough on the grid multipliers, but he flip side was that the rovers should have had action on all bands most of the time. Only eighteen 6m Es contacts in 15 grids. 
  I had a ball and hope you did too.
  End result was:
 6m -- 50 Qs  -- 29 grids 2m -- 49 Qs  -- 19 grids222 -- 19 Qs  -- 12 grids432 -- 29 Qs  -- 14 grids902 -- 13 Qs  --   7 grids1296 -- 14 Qs -- 8 grids10GHz -- 5 Qs -- 3 grids
179 Qs  92 Multipliers 27,232pts
73  Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed