[NLRS] W9HQ/KC9JTL summaries for ARRL June and CQ VHF contests

[David Palm]

Rather than let the best be the enemy of the good, as I'm so prone to do,
let me go ahead and give a summary of our experiences in the last two
VHF/UHF contests.

First, the ARRL June contest.  Christopher (KC9JTL) and I operated for a
few hours from our home QTH on Saturday.  There was a nice opening on 6
meters and we worked quite a few grids on that band.  We were able to work
at least W9GM, WD9BGA, W0UC, and K2DRH on all three of the bands we had in
play from home (222 was down.)  Overall we had a good time.

Then on that Sunday we went roving to the St. Charles grid convergence.  We
were pretty antenna limited, with just a simple dipole on 6 meters, a
3-element "cheap yagi" on 144, and a 10-element "cheap yagi" on 432.
Within those limitations I think we did alright, but it did seem that
activity was down -- we called CQ quite a bit and heard relatively little.
But again, that could be about our equipment as much as activity levels.
So it was a bit disappointing in that regard.  We did work a fair number of
the "locals" and got multiple band/multiple grids especially with W0UC and
most especially with K2DRH, who really stuck with us -- special thanks,
Bob!  In retrospect I think we left a lot of QSOs on the table because we
didn't coordinate as much via cell/text as we might have, especially with
other rovers.  So I think I'll have a different strategy in future roves.
That being said, it was great to spend some car time with Christopher and
we did have a good time together.

I had intended to submit our contest logs, but...(always a but)...I left
the next week for China. A ways into my trip I realized that the deadline
was coming up and I scrambled to enter our logs (we had logged on paper)
and start generating the Cabrillo logs, only to realize that I had screwed
up the time change and missed the deadline for on-line submission.
Sheesh.  I've got to get this contest submission thing worked out.

Finally, I operated in the CQ VHF contest by myself for a few hours and had
a blast!  There was a significant opening on 6 meters -- it seemed to start
to the south and then moved south east and east as the afternoon
progressed.  One thing I did differently in this contest was call CQ more
on 6 meters, rather doing mostly search and pounce on other strong
signals.  I've always considered myself a "little gun" station, so I would
just look for those that seemed stronger.  But the CQing actually worked
great and several times I'd find myself in a mini pile-up, which was quite
exciting.  EN43 isn't super rare, but it's not super common either, so
perhaps that helped.  So whereas KC9JTL and I only got about 27 QSOs from
the home QTH during the ARRL contest, I ended up getting well over 80 in
the CQ contest.  That was eclipsed by what some others were able to do, of
course, but for me that's quite good.

Anyway, I'm spending a lot more time than usual on ham radio lately,
enjoying it thoroughly, and I hope that trend can continue!  Now I need to
get my youngest licensed so that she can be my new roving buddy.....

73,

David  W9HQ