[TVARC] VHF Contest

[K2PS Pete Stafford]

The ARRL June VHF Contest is coming up, starting at 2P local time Saturday,
and running until 11P Sunday.

 

As usual, I'll be operating on 6M only, even though all bands from 6M and
higher may be used.  But my experience has been that at this time of the
year the chances for great 6M openings are quite high.  Indeed, some of us
have been working the West Coast and Europe the last few days on the Magic
Band.  I've been able to work stations with my inside-the-garage 6M dipole,
which I use when it's stormy outside, so load up that wet noodle!

 

Something new to many of us is the chance to use FT8 to augment our QSO
totals when the band isn't so strong.  Note that your QSO rate will be much
faster on SSB or CW, so use FT8 wisely.  In this contest you may work each
station only once on each band, regardless of mode.  

 

As for FT8, since the exchange is only your grid square, you'll need to
change your standard messages.  Simply click on Enable VHF/UHF/Microwave in
the Settings | General tab, and voila', a checkbox will appear on the main
screen, just below Auto Seq, named NA VHF Contest (tnx N0SMX).  Click on
that, and then on Generate Std Messages, and you'll see them change,
eliminating the unnecessary signal reporting formats.  

 

I've tested N1MM so that when I've completed an FT8 session and go back to
N1MM, I can import the ADIF file FT8 just created, so that N1MM will know
when I'm about to work a dupe and has all the contest QSOs.  Be sure to go
to Tools | Rescore Current Contest right after the import to get N1MM
straightened out.

 

And most importantly, give me a call during the contest!

 

73, Pete, K2PS



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/tvarc/attachments/20180606/944c3454/attachment.html>