[NLRS] A little write up on the VHF contest and EN38

[Wyatt Dirks]

I'll start with the June VHF contest.

About a month before the contest I was still debating what to do for the
contest. After some debate with K0DAS and KC0SKM we decided to do a multiop
effort in EN15. The main reason for choosing EN15 was how rare it was on 6m
for FFMA chasers and its still semi close to civilization to hopefully work
some stuff above 6m. So we started planning with very little time to do so.
I found an old farm house on AIRBNB and messaged the owner asking if we
could set up the station there. Surely she had no idea what I was asking
about but after a little discussion she said we were free to do whatever we
wanted. When I first arrived I met her there and confirmed she was ok with
what we were doing.

I arrived Friday before the contest about 4pm and started setting up about
5pm after talking to the owner and coming up with a game plan. By 7pm or so
I had 6m up and working but no time to operate. Since I saw 6m was doing
good I recruited my friend KG5CCI to remote the station and give the grid
out to FFMA chasers.  He worked a bunch giving me the chase to continue
setting up. By the time it got dark I had gotten about as far as I could
without. About 11pm Rod and Gregg showed up and we got all the rest of the
stuff, mostly setup and the shack and went to bed about 1am. Saturday
morning we got off to a slow start but somehow just barely managed to get
all the antennas up and working by contest start. The 2m antenna had to
come down once as well as the 222 antenna which was damaged in the trip
north.

The following was the antenna layout.

6m- 3 antennas feeding a stack match
1. 6m7 at 45ft
2. 6m7 at 30ft
3. 6m5 at 28ft

2m- 12 element lfa at 50ft above the higher 6m7. Had a seperate rotor for
2m but didn't use it because we didn't get it working in time.

222- 30ft M2 clone at 50ft

432- m2 432-9wl just above the 222 yagi

Equipment used on each band.

6m- FTdx101d and eb104 2kw sspa running about 1100w in contest
2m- IC7300, Q5 transverter and DX shop 1400w SSPA running about kw
222- IC7300, DEMI Transverter and Harris amp running about 650w
432- IC9700 and EB104 400w sspa

6m and 2m were the same operating positions as were 222 and 432. This could
obviously be improved but it works ok.

Here is the score and break down per band.

6m- 1096qs/277 mults
2m- 80qs/47 mults
222-19qs/12 mults
432-27qs/17 mults
Total 1222qs/353 mults

Total score- 447,604

High lights in the contest for me was working 4 qs on 2m eskip. 6m was also
pretty much open the entire contest to somewhere. Dx from here was very
little compared to what lots of others reported. I think 2 or 3 European
qsos and a handful of JA.

Lots of room for improvement but we are highly considering doing this again
next and maybe from the same location. I'll list a few items of
improvement.
1. Separate 2m to its own tower and put 2x12 for a bigger signal.
2. Improve 432 rx by switching to transverter and possibly mount amp and
transverter at tower base. Maybe the same on 222.
3. Rovers? Our biggest shortfall was a lack of local grids(200 miles)
worked with some more rovers to the west and east. We are very grateful for
the rover that did go out. Without the log in front of me I'm not going to
name them and miss one.
4. Show up a day earlier to get everything setup and tested before 3pm on
saturday. Mostly working through little issues that take up time.

Monday morning we got up and tore down most of the station in short order.
By 10am Rod and Gregg headed south. I stuck around till Tuesday morning
working a few more people that needed EN15 for FFMA. Of the FFMA Leaders we
completed qs with all but three of them and 2 of those were out of town.
Huge Mission success for FFMA chasers and EN15. Monday evening there was
also some big tropo building and on 2m worked over 900 miles to EM53. I'm
guessing the tropo was better Tuesday morning but I had to pack up and head
for EN38.

Onward to EN38-

Myself and Vince(K0SIX) arrived in EN38 at a Cabin I again had found on
AIRBNB about 3pm and began setting up the 6m and 2m stations. Here we set
up a 6m7 at 45ft and 2m 12 element lfa at 50ft again above the 6m yagi. I
did get the 2m rotor working so 6m and 2m could be independently aimed. To
my surprise I found a 240ac outlet for the dryer so we could run a full
1500w on 6m and about 1300w on 2m. The owner of the cabin told me there was
no 240 and that the dryer was a gas dryer. Brad(KB0HNN) showed up Thursday
morning to join in on the fun.

>From EN38 we operated through Saturday evening trying to take advantage of
any and all 6m openings for FFMA chasers. The only place the band never
really opened was W6. Of the 68 people on the FFMA spreadsheet we worked
all but 14. Some of the 14 aren't leaders which requires over 400 grids
toward ffma. From EN38 we made 642 qsos about 60 of which were on 2m the
rest on 6m.

A few pictures of each setup can be found on my twitter page. And maybe the
other guys have more pictures they could share?

https://twitter.com/WyattAC0RA?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

I might do some more roving this summer but I'm not sure. I will definitely
be setting up for the CQWWVHF  contest with both 6m and 2m from EN42. After
that I look forward to seeing everyone at Central States.

73 Wyatt
AC0RA
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