[NLRS] 222+ Contest, K0PG

[aduhawk at comcast.net]

First, it was a great pleasure to be around so many NLRS'ers and BC'ers at the CSVHF annual meeting a week ago or so.  The committee did a great job of getting it all together.


Not much to report from the contest.   I wasn't able to get on until about 7:00 PM Saturday and would have no time Sunday so the expectations were not high.  We did not go out as rovers so it was just me with antennas on the balcony.  Pat finds contesting at home to be a real snooze and took the time to work on the photos she took on the way to and home from CSVHF.


The shack is in the living room so everything gets hauled out and set up.  We have plenty of conveniences for roving, including lots of 15'-20' lengths of coax.  They get joined by the appropriate barrel connectors and pushed up on a couple of masts. They wind up above the roof line and about 33' AGL.  I do not have a hefty power supply for the TE amps, so it's 25 watts on 222, 50 watts on 432, 10 watts on 900 and 1296.  


I used a brand new rover looper for 1296, a M2 yagi for 902, a shortened M2 on 432 (4' boom) and 222 big wheel.  Signals were down on 222, were quite strong on 432 and 1296 and I never got around to working anyone on 902.  Casualties included the 222 XVRTR which quit transmitting after a couple of hours (it happened while we were trying to complete AA9D).  Of course, this morning I tried a different IF rig and it transmitted just fine.  All of a sudden my CW output on the TS2K dropped to QRPp levels while SSB was fine.


432 grew suspicious when I couldn't hear or raise anyone after about 10:30 CDT.  Sometimes it seems like there's a curfew on these bands, but the efficacy principle kicked in so I bagged it.  I took everything down and made a list of things to correct for September.  The Go the Distance Team, headed by the redoubtable K9JK will benefit to the tune of 1578 points from my 12 QSO entry.


73,


Tim K0PG