[TVARC] ARRL June VHF K2PS SO 3Band LP

[K2PS Pete Stafford]

I truly love this contest.  And now, with FT8, it's even better!

Turns out that Florida is often the best place to be to rack up QSOs on 6
meters, and this year did not disappoint.  Had quite a few terrific openings
to both New England, and to the Midwest.  Unfortunately I missed an FT8 EU
opening - not sure how long it was there, and I got a call from an IS0, but
couldn't complete the contact - and then no more from across the pond.

SSB was, of course the best way to make lots of Qs, and I had the rate meter
up over 200 a couple of times.  But CW wasn't bad either, at times.  FT8,
however, let me stay in the chair all day long, as there was always
something out there to work - not that it was always easy to do, and it's
agonizingly slow sometimes, especially working stations not clued in to the
contest exchange.  I got used to flipping back and forth between contest
mode and standard whenever someone would send me a signal report.  The
problem was remembering to put it back!  It was also pretty clear when it
was time to jump back to SSB/CW when FT8 would start displaying lots of
signals in the waterfall.

Although I live in an antenna-restricted community, I take the chance to put
up my old Cushcraft 5-element yagi on my old HAM-IV (which, outside of the
contest, houses a PVC pole with a bird-feeder on top), on a Rohn pushup mast
which I raise to about 25 feet.  No one complained this time around, so all
is good.

One hassle was in trying to deal with the transition between N1MM+ and
WSJT-X.  I like to know about what mults I've worked, whether a station is a
dupe, and to just get a sense of total score.  So I kept grabbing the ADIF
file from WSJT-X and importing it into N1MM+ whenever I went back to SSB/CW.
It would also be nice to keep both programs running concurrently, but I
haven't figured out how to do that, even with an IC-7610.

Looking forward to next year!

73, Pete, K2PS

                    ARRL June VHF Contest

Call: K2PS
Operator(s): K2PS
Station: K2PS

Class: SO 3Band LP
QTH: NFL
Operating Time (hrs): 23

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  663   141
    2:           
  222:           
  432:           
  903:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  663   141  Total Score = 93,483

Club: Florida Contest Group

Comments:



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