[NLRS] Another successful August portion of the 10 GHz contest for W9FZ and KA9VVQ

[Bruce Richardson]

Janice and I arrived home Sunday night totally beat after two hard days of ham radio 😊 .  I got so sleepy driving back in to town on I-35 (around Elko/New Market) that Janice had to take over driving the rest of the way and I fell asleep in the passenger seat.  We drove 385 miles the first day and 387 miles the second day.

Contrary to what you might think from that opening paragraph, our weekend was a resounding success.  We were blessed with two stellar days of weather.  Dry air and just the right temp on Saturday. Sunday got a little warm but that's ok--we'd rather have that than the alternative.  Our equipment worked fine throughout the event.  Radio conditions were average to slightly below average (in my view) except for the first hour on Sunday when conditions were quite good.

The real reason for the fun on the weekend is that we made a bunch of contacts and there were other fine operators on the other end of those contacts--also known as our friends.  It takes two ops to make a contact.  Thanks to five ops going to Jim K0KFC's house, we had a group there to work repeatedly (K0KFC, N0KP, WA2VOI, WB0EBG, and WF0T).  Thanks to Chris and Holly (N0UK & K0HAC) playing radio from their south-viewing apartment porch many floors up, we had many contacts with them.  Thanks to Gary, W0GHZ and Bill, K0AWU operating from home, we had many contacts with them.  Thanks to Mel KC0P and Carol N0HZO heading out on both days,  we had multiple contacts with the two of them.  Thanks to Jon W0ZQ heading out portable to the park-n-ride, we logged yet another unique call with him.  Adding to the fun were DX contacts with Larry WA9TT twice over in Wisconsin, Ron W9ZIH twice (Illinois), Greg W0LGQ (EN21ci) once, Lloyd N9LB (EN52hv) twice, John K9JK (EN51xr) once, and Zack W9SZ (EN51xr) once.

Another contributor to our fun was roving with Gary WB0LJC. Gary always has a great plan (and history) of good operating locations.  With his maps, database, and GPS data, our day proceeds more effectively rather than having to find operating locations each time.  He's got good equipment that works reliably.  While I was on the phone with DX stations doing the coordinating, I could hear through the phone that they were hearing Gary's beaconing just fine.

We saw many beautiful vistas and healthy farm crops.  We apparently were north of the derecho damage in Iowa.  We got a little sun burnt and dusty gravel roads always make you feel really grungy at the end of the day.  Showers back home were a relief.

Sure, when conditions were good and signals loud, the contacts were easy.  When you do a bunch of those, it might even seem repetitive.  We are ok with that because it let's us play with and enjoy the radio gear that only gets used a few times per year.  That way our $ investment in the transverter, IF rig, dish, sequencer and all goes down per QSO.  Contrasting with good conditions and easy contacts, real joy and gratification come from completing difficult contacts.  Either poor conditions or extreme distance drive the likelihood of success down.  When both ends of the contact use their experience and skills to eek out every db from what is possible, a successful contact sometimes ensues.  It's a lot of work peaking and listening hard to blaring radio hash and hiss to make sense of what is right at the noise level.  So we are most proud of the contacts that were difficult.

I've put a graphic showing the weekend's action at:  https://w9fz.com/ham/2020AugRoverAction.jpg

Janice and I will only be on minimally for the September weekend (from EN43tq) because we will be spending most of our time on State QSO parties. It's "the year of the state QSO party" doncha know.  We sure had a successful August weekend.  We are both near 22,000 points and at least 16 unique calls worked.  Thanks again to all the other operators for being on-the-air.

73
Bruce Richardson W9FZ
Janice Hoettels KA9VVQ