[NLRS] Jan VHF -- EN37ed K0AWU Report

[Bill Davis]

  Thanks to all of those that got on for the contest. The 32deg weather produced thick fog for the entire contest period here, so a good weekend to be in the shack. I had hoped that the warm weather might have created some good prop, but "not so much" as the kids would say. I was "around" the entire contest period, watched some football Sunday with the hamshack 10ft away monitoring 144.200 and 222.100. 

  Activity was low again, My Jan contest score was the lowest since 2002, when I had only 4 bands. Very nice to hear some signals on frequencies that have been silent since last Sept contest. Great to catch up with a number of long time friends. Northern group worked included, NT0V, W0PHD, KB0LBS, K0MVJ, KB0CIM. Rovers were only worked in one grid each were W9FZ, KA9VVQ, KC0P, N0HZO. 

  Best DX (other than Bob K2DRH at 411miles) included Bruce and Janice in EN43tq at 287miles, Ray WB0HHM EN13 at 289miles and Dennis NT0V EN08 at 250miles. Heard several good meteor bursts on 144.200 that included K5QE and a 8 who's call I didn't get,both quite lengthy and strong. Sadly neither even got a QRZ or response of any kind that I heard. My sked with Bob K2DRH on 432 JT65 was worked using random aircraft scatter again. I run abut 4db more power and Bob was seeing me better, but he needed the aircraft for any signal to be seen here at all.

  In the end .. Only 56 QSOs, 36grids total 3,564 points.

   Webmail formatting FAILS miserably, so I'll just list the band counts. QSO's followed by grids --- 6m 13 - 6, 2m 18 - 10, 222 -- 9 - 7 , 432 -- 9 - 6, 902 -- 3 - 3, 1296 -- 3 - 3 and 10GHz 1 - 1.

73  Bill  K0AWU