[NLRS] W9FZ/R & KA9VVQ/R Jan 2016 VHF Contest report (long)

[Bruce Richardson]

Wow!  What a fine contest!  It was a success for us with many highlights.

Life has been busy lately and no time was spent troubleshooting 902, 
1296, or 2304--all of which seemed dead at the end of the September 
contest.  Well, the day before the contest, I determined that 1296 is 
dead on both transmit and receive; 2304 is down to 100mw output 
(formerly 6w), and that 902 seemed to work.

We have been down at the cabin in Hillsboro a lot lately so we got the 
antenna rack out of the barn and it was one of the nicest days ever (for 
January) to mount antennas on the car.  We drove to the cities and 
that's where we loaded the radios.  The 1296 beam developed a stress 
fracture and broke in transit.  Good thing that rig is down--I just 
pulled the entire beam off of the rack.

Janice and I came up with a 7-grid rove schedule that let us start from 
Woodbury, spend Saturday night at the cabin, and finish the contest 
within easy reach of the cabin.  Plus, the plan would keep us generally 
close enough to work all of our VHF+ friends in the region.

Highlights:

Good, mild weather.  The snowstorm arrived 2 days after the contest.  
During the contest temps were mild.  Ok, the rain while we were in EN33 
made 10GHz a challenge (so much so that we skipped 10G in EN43).  We all 
know that every few years, we get mild weather on the Jan contest 
weekend.  It was a real treat for this to be one of those years.

We stayed BUSY!  324 QSOs for me and 323 for Janice!  That means that we 
sat through 647 QSOs! (W0OHUs 432 amp went down after my Q but before 
Janice's.)

Speaking of W0OHU, he worked us multiple times at the St Charles corner 
using 3w on 144 and 2w on 432 and indoor antennas.

W0UC's regional planning spreadsheets and his spots page.  Both helped 
us know what was out there for which to look.

No equipment failures during the contest.  This will, however, be the 
last contest for the Icom IC-505.   No, really .

10 GHz!  Made Q's with W0GHZ, KC0P/R, N0HZO/R, and W9ZIH.  Being OCXO 
locked sure made it a lot easier.

While we say activity was good enough because we stayed busy, there were 
notable callsigns missing in the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, and Madison areas.

902 seems to be working just fine.

W9GA in Milwaukee.  Always a treat to hear our friend Ken's call on 
144.240.  We worked him both days.

N0SPN/R.  Danny lives near Rochester but we found him out at the St 
Charles grid corner on 2m and 440 FM.  He's got a neat hitch mount that 
gets vertical antennas way up above his car.  I couldn't get our FM rig 
to work simplex on 440 so we missed some Qs with him there.  Nice to 
have the activity and sounds like he was having fun.

KC0P/R and N0HZO/R.  Mel and Carol were out there making Qs and they 
really increased our activity for the weekend.  We had a nice eyeball 
QSO with them at the Kwik Trip in St Charles about 7pm. They were headed 
home and we were still headed to EN33 and EN43.

AC0RA/R.  Wow!  What a fine Rover Wyatt is!  He helped our activity and 
score big time when we were at the Dodgeville corner.

No visits from law enforcement!

 From the Dodgeville corner, it was a treat to work KA9VDU, N9XKH, 
WB9YZU, and WA9PWP a bunch of times.

Karl, WD9BGA and Wendy KC9YSB.  Karl (from his home) worked us a bunch 
at the Dodgeville corner.  He encouraged us to stop by and pick up a 
1296 FM handheld to take to the operating location a few miles from his 
house (so we did).  Then Wendy took spare rigs and went with Karl to the 
West lookout tower at Blue Mounds State Park and operated portable.  We 
worked Wendy on 6, 2, 223.5, 432, 902, and 1296.

We thought cellphone and texting worked out just right for us.  Most 
operators found us"on-the-air".  But the extra layer of communication 
let us make more QSOs before leaving a grid.

It is a REAL treat working our friends in the Twin Cities and in Eau 
Claire.  Great signals, great savvy, and smooth QSOs.  W0GHZ, W0ZQ, 
K0SIX, W0UC, K9MU, and N0AKC come to mind here.

W8MIL in EN74.  That's a nice treat.

Lowlights:  not too bad.  One squatter on 144.200 in EN54.  Then all the 
Chicago stations who won't tune off of .200.  We could hear them but 
they couldn't hear us and wouldn't tune away from the bedlam. All of 
them could have worked us at Dodgeville if they had just tried off of .200.

When you take all those highlights, they swamp the lowlights and the 
weekend was a big success for Janice and me.

I'm whipping up a little travelogue web page that will include the 
comments above and the pictures from the weekend.  When it's done, I'll 
re-post with the URL.

Thanks again to all of you we worked.  It takes two to make a QSO and we 
thank you for your half.

73
Bruce W9FZ/R and Janice KA9VVQ/R