[TVARC] K2PS ARRL June VHF Contest

Tue Jun 11 22:08:41 EDT 2024

So, I sent my writeup to the XYL as well and she, being a ChaptGPT regenerative AI aficionado, decided to post what I wrote, asking it to rewrite it in a humorous way.  I couldn’t imagine that any of that could be humorous, but here’s what it came back with the following, with absolutely no edits from me.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy it:

The Villages Amateur Radio Club Report

A Tale of Two Contests

Operator: Pete, K2PS
Club: The Villages Amateur Radio Club

  _____  

Once upon a time in the land of Ham Radio, there was a contest that could only be described as a tale of two halves. The first half (let's call it "The Ugly Half") started at 2 PM on Saturday and dragged its feet all the way to about 10:30 AM Sunday. Trust me, it was uglier than a Yeti in a bikini.

I decided to stick with 6 meters for this one. Why there's no single-band category, I'll never know. Maybe the contest organizers just enjoy our suffering. So, I entered the 3-band class, leaving 144 and 432 MHz untouched, like a perfectly good piece of broccoli on a toddler’s plate. Fortunately, our Florida QTH usually does well on 6 meters (and 10 meters too). Low Power is the name of the game in this class, which is just a fancy way of saying, "Good luck without your amp!"

First Phase: The Ugly Half

The band conditions were about as cooperative as a cat during bath time. These days, bad conditions mean ditching SSB and CW in favor of FT8. Now, don’t get me wrong, FT8 is great – it’s the ham radio equivalent of watching paint dry, but hey, it's better than nothing.

After some initial excitement with local Florida stations, signals from New England, the Midwest, Minnesota, and even Canada would pop up, wave hello, and then vanish quicker than free donuts at a staff meeting. Chasing these signals was like playing whack-a-mole with a blindfold. In 8.5 grueling hours, I managed to bag a whopping 33 stations across 12 grids.

Sunday morning didn’t look much better. I added 17 more contacts in 8 grids, still clinging to FT8 like a lifeboat. I did manage to work K3SK on MSK144, which felt like discovering a unicorn – exciting, but ultimately not very productive.

Second Phase: The Magical Turnaround

Just when I thought the radio gods had forsaken me, a few more stations appeared on the left side of the FT8 window. Time to roll the dice on SSB and CW! SSB was a ghost town, but CW brought a few more contacts. Switching back to SSB, the skies (well, the clouds anyway) finally opened up, and we were off to the races from about 10 AM until 3 PM. Between 11 AM and 2 PM, I was cranking out QSOs at a blistering average of 81 per hour. Finally, some action! After that flurry, I returned to FT8 to snag some last-minute multipliers before calling it quits a bit early.

Final Thoughts

As of now, it looks like I’m leading in the 3-Band category among those brave enough to post their scores to 3830. Let's hope it stays that way!

Huge thanks to Rusty (W3US), Paul (KM4PIH), John (W4MRJ), and Faith (N4FMO) for calling in and making the contest a bit more entertaining.

73,
Pete, K2PS

From: George Briggs <k2dm at comcast.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 9:00 PM
To: K2PS Pete Stafford <psk2ps at gmail.com>
Cc: villages reflector <tvarc at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [TVARC] K2PS ARRL June VHF Contest

Way to stick with it Pete. Nice narrative.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 11, 2024, at 3:44 PM, K2PS Pete Stafford <psk2ps at gmail.com <mailto:psk2ps at gmail.com> > wrote:

Call: K2PS

Operator(s): K2PS

Station: K2PS

Class: SO3Band-All Modes LP

QTH: NFL

Operating Time (hrs): 15

Summary:

Band  QSOs  Mults

-------------------

    6:  398   107

    2:           

  222:           

  432:           

  902:           

  1.2:           

  2.3:           

  3.4:           

  5.7:           

  10G:           

  24G:           

-------------------

Total:  398   107  Total Score = 42,586

Club: The Villages Amateur Radio Club

‘Twas a tale of two contests.  The first one (the bad one), showed up all day Saturday (2PM start), and up to maybe 1030AM Sunday.  And it was ugly.  

I just operate on 6 meters for this one (why they don’t have a single-band category, I’ll never know), so I had to enter in the 3-band class, forgoing 144 and 432.  But in my favor, it has seemed, at least most of the times, that our Florida QTH works really quite well on 6 (and also on 10M).  I should add that Low Power is a requirement for this class.

So, getting back to the first phase, the band was pretty bad.  That means, in these days of digital, that we forget about SSB and CW, and just focus on FT8.  I surely don’t wish to disparage FT8, since in the past, with no signals on SSB/CW, I’d be watching TV with the XYL.  So there was some activity to be seen.  Beyond the initial flurry of local, Florida, stations, there were, once in a while, stations from New England, the Midwest, even as far as Minnesota and Canada.  The problem was that they showed up just once, and then completely disappeared from the waterfall.  Of course, calling these stations was just frustrating.  CQing didn’t help much, either, and I bemoaned my inability to crank up the amp.  In 8-1/2 hours I worked a total of 33 stations, in 12 grids.

Sunday morning didn’t look much better, with 17 more in the log, in 8 grids, still all FT8, with one exception – worked K3SK on MSK144, thinking that maybe the only propagation was meteor scatter, but no more luck there.

Since I saw that a few more stations began to show up on the left side of the FT8 window, I figured I’d try SSB/CW.  No one on SSB, but I did manage to work a handful of CW stations, and then tried SSB again.  After a slow start, the skies (well, clouds anyway) opened up, and we were off to the races, starting at about 10A until about 3P.  Between 11A and 2P, I was able to average 81 QSOs/hr.  Did that make up for all the early pain…yeah!  After that, back to FT8 to pick up some stray multipliers, and quit a few hours early.

At this point in time, it looks as if I’m leading in my 3-Band category, but that’s only for those who posted to 3830, so fingers crossed.

Thanks to Rusty, W3US, Paul, KM4PIH, John, W4MRJ, and Faith N4FMO for calling in.

73, Pete, K2PS

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