[NLRS] W9FZ and KA9VVQ enjoyed the 10 GHz contest this year

[Bruce Richardson]

Whew! We’ve had two weekends in a row filled with Ham Radio.  Two weekends ago was a fine weekend of September VHF and we have yet to share our comments about that weekend.

 

More recently, Janice and I spent this past weekend driving around SE Minnesota and SW Wisconsin for the September portion of the 10 GHz and Above contest. Add in the August weekend (all in SW Wisconsin) and that completes this year’s 10 GHz Contest.

 

We had great weather both weekends. This past weekend, we started Saturday morning SE of the Twin Cities at Vasa, MN.  We had easy chip-shot contacts with the locals. We were glad to get K0AWU up in EN37ed in the log from there and one other location.  At the Vasa site, there is one location that has great views west through north to east.  To work southeast and south, one must move about a quarter mile to a different spot.  We did that and worked W9ZIH 426km away (EN51nv). We also picked up Gary WB0LJC much closer at EN33en (Kiester Hill).

 

Saturday we worked our way southward finding locations that had views W/NW and then occasionally views E/SE to try for W9ZIH and other Chicago area operators like K9JK.  After dining at the Subway in Kasson, MN, I backed into another car in the parking lot and had to wait for a policeman to come and make an accident report.  Embarrassing and expensive!  After Saturday activity was over, we travelled to our cabin near Hillsboro, WI.  One real highlight was at our last spot on Saturday, we noted a good view towards K2YAZ. So we called him up and ran with him. We worked him on CW. Signals were surprisingly strong at 506km!  We think there was some enhancement over the Lake Michigan portion.

 

Sunday, we worked our way south from the cabin finding spots more than 10 miles from spots we had activated on the August weekend.  We started the day with some fine shots to WB0LJC who was out in SW Minnesota of 431 and 416km. We also repeatedly worked N0KP, W0GHZ, and N0UK in the Twin Cities on longer and longer shots. We would alternate our W/NW facing shots with E/SE facing shots. Southwest Wisconsin does not permit both at the same time 😊 . Throughout Sunday we worked W9ZIH, K9JK, WD9BGA and KA9VDU from various spots.

 

The thing Janice and I liked the best about both weekends was how beautiful the scenery was during all of the driving.  They were beautiful drives punctuated by 10 GHz activity.  Check out these longest distances: 516, 506, 431, 426, 416, 402, 391, 390, 387, 380, 376, and 363. And 12 more between 299 and 350.

 

For this year’s contest we each had 29066 distance points and 22 unique callsigns worked for a total score of 31266. We each had 152 contacts.  Our longest QSO was from EN42px (at a scenic overlook just west of Fennimore, WI) to K0AWU at EN37ed. This was 516km and happened on Sunday night of the August weekend.  

 

We appreciate all of the fixed stations who stopped by their radios (for home stations) and for people like N0KP, K0KFC, WA2VOI, and K9JK who were portable outdoors all day near their radios.  We appreciate the rovers who checked with us to see if we had good shots in each other’s direction.  We stayed busy thanks to all of you on the other end of the QSOs.  Sure more activity—both fixed and rover—would be great.  We had a ball.  If you like driving and activity, consider roving.

 

73

Bruce Richardson W9FZ

Janice Hoettels KA9VVQ