AA2SD/R Completes The Jan VHF 2026 Contest Rove Visiting Grids FN20, FM10, FM19, FM29 and Local
South Jersey Pack Rats During Wintry Conditions

AA2SD/R Rover - November 17th -18th Jan VHF Contest -  Early morning driving out to the Morgantown
Location FN20 on the PA turnpike the Snow and Icy mix started, and at time the Turnpike was down to
a crawling 15-20 MPH, as I made my way to to meet up with the other Rovers. This was an early
indication of weather and things to come for this weekend. Saturday Morning I set at FN20 Sunnyside
overlook at 800 ft with (3) Rovers, W3ICC/R Paul and Drex,  K2EZ/R Andrea and K0BAK/R Pete 
KG6CIHR/R Chris was simultaneously set up on FN10 across from us at the start of the contest.
KE5NJ/R Chris had to cancel due to a flu and was missed.

AA2SD/R experiencing wintry conditions throughout the entire  contest

Part One Stop 1 FN20 Sunnyside Morgantown The best plans sometimes don’t work, and this proved out
to be the case. We learned quickly that this did not work out well at all, as we overloaded each
other, and created a much too aggressive SKED schedule that we could not stay on. We made the best
of the time at Morgantown and worked with Len N3NGE, Roger W3SZ and Dave K1RZ Gary WA2OMY and
several others.  With stop 1 FN20 completed and behind schedule it was dark and cold as we
negotiated our way to East Earl township and onto the Shady Maple RV Lot for placement.

AA2SD/R positioned at FN20 Sunnybrook Overlook 800 ft at the contest start

Part Two  STOP 2 East Earl Township/ Shady Maple  FN10, I found the very back of the RV parking lot
to work Roger and several others from this location.  W3ICC/R Paul and Drex joined me after some
time and set up, and Andrea K2EZ/R joined to make some easy Rover to Rover QSOs. At this point we
were far behind schedule and the cold and darkness set in for a white knuckle drive to my hotel in
Strusberg PA. I decided to forgo to work stations on the run back to the Hotel, and focused on my
driving as I experienced black ice and snow fog on the way to the hotel upon arriving at 10 PM and
called it quits for the day.


AA2SD/R working from the Shady Maple RV Lot Late Saturday evening 

Part 3 Stop 2 FM19 Holiday Inn Hotel Site Strasburg I was meeting Chris Patterson W3CMP Rover early
Sunday morning to exchange an antenna, we met briefly for the exchange and I thank Chris for taking
the time to bring this over in the snow. I awoke to a driving wet snow in the parking lot and
decided to load my recharged LIPO 4 batteries back in the rover after charging and try some parking
lot QSO’s before Chris arrived. After cleaning the rover from snow, to my surprise this parking
lot spot played extremely well, I worked several contacts on lower 4 bands and also worked some
micros with my shoe box rover set up from the lot. I fished out this spot for over 2 hours  and
waited for the snow plows to come out on an early Sunday morning, which did not happen. It was time
to move South to the new Antenna Site on Truce Road at 900 feet.


AA2SD/R Positioned  at Truce Road FM19 900 ft  early Sunday Morning working K1RZ

Part 4 Stop 4 Truce Road Antenna Site at 900 Feet FM19  This short drive according to Waze GPS was
only 20 minutes totaling 11 miles due south into the rural farm area. Most of the roads traveled
early Sunday morning were not treated and it was extremely slow going to stay safe. 

Instead this drive took me well over 1 hour 15 minutes of extreme slow going on back country roads
that were not treated or plowed. In some cases my tire tracks were the first ones to mark the fresh
driven virgin snow. The positive is the Subaru Outback with all wheel drive had no problem handling
the snow. I had planned ahead and installed a new set of  Michelin Snow Tires called Michelin X-Ice.
I read about these tires on Tire Rack, Michelin X-Ice Snow studless, and decided to invest in a set
for winter roving. I would recommend these tires for anyone driving in this type of condition.





Working N3NGE Len with a show box 10GHZ from N3RG on 10 GHz Sunday Morning from FM19 Hotel Parking
Lot

I arrived at the Truce Road antenna site and worked with Dave K1RZ and a few others, but this site
did not play out as well as the earlier hotel site. It could have been that it was Sunday breakfast
and Church time, and the bands were empty for me, or conditions had changed. I decided that after my
long drive here and weather continuing to make an audible call and redirect to Mullica Hill NJ to
work South Jersey Pack Rats. My country route path took me to a covered wooden bridge with a large
“10 Feet Restriction” overhead. Which my rover could not make and had to re-direct again.


AA2SD/R heading to Truce gets turned around due to Antenna Height at this Bridge with only a 10 foot
clearance, my antenna touched the wooden warning overhead bar.

This road took me through the tip of Maryland into Delaware and finally back onto 95 North to South
Jersey. I switched antennas over to the stacked halos, and worked WA3NUF and several others on the
drive back to New Jersey, although the weather continued to be very bad driving conditions.

AA2SD/R Total Rove of 370 Miles complete during the Jan VHF Contest 2026 including a Southern New
Jersey door to door microwave rove for locals.

Part 5 Stop FM29 South Jersey Mini Rove Mullica Hill, Millville, Atco and Voorhees NJ change the
Playbook to a Driveway Rover for Microwave contacts Driving fatigue was starting to set in and I
decided to take lunch at a deli, and re-direct to South Jersey, I now had a goal to finish early,
have dinner with my XYL at 5PM and call it quits.   The  inclement weather played a big part in
delays, and I personally had to re-direct my schedule to stay safe, I decided to change the playbook
and become a driveway Rover taking the lead from Pete K0BAK,  and personally visited WB2RVX, N3RG,
KC2SGV and KC2TN for some great driveway microwave contacts.  This strategy worked very well as I
worked all stations on their available microbands, with Ray I worked him from a tree farm in
Southern New Jersey at 3 miles.

Summary of the Jan Contest 2026  I clocked a little over 370 miles driven in 2 days all in very poor
conditions. Fortunately I planned ahead for these driving conditions. I decided to use only a
rooftop antenna set up only, with no antenna mast set up. This proved to work very well, as I
deployed double stack halos for 222, 432, and 2 mtrs, and single halo for 6 Mtrs. 

I did use 3 small ELK beams for 222, 2 Mtrs and 70 cm which played well with a rotor. During this
rove I tested (2) 100 AMP LIPO 4 batteries and (1) 35 Amp AGM battery, along with a newly installed
DC to DC charger which allowed me to charge on the way from the car alternator. Also the lighter
batteries are easy to handle and came out to be charged in my hotel room. I can now drop the heavier
AGM Batteries. I did experience a lot of N1MM connection issues for logging and CAT control with my
PC which challenged logging QSOs. This must have been from RF in the vehicle, and I need to correct
this or add toroids to the USB connections to the PC.

AA2SD/R Scott with Mike WB2RVX makes his last set of contact with 10 bands at the contest end with
Mike

I also learned that you can make 10GHz  and 5GHz microwave contacts from the roof rack with horns.
This strategy worked very well, and I added longer IF cables and power cables for quick setup. I can
improve on this for the next contest. I was manually switching BNC connectors which can easily be
corrected with a switch.

I would like to thank all of the Pack Rat Rovers and Operators that participated in this "test case"
of having multiple Rovers in one location at FN20 during the first day of the VHF contest. I was
glad I stayed in the contest with some changes due to the weather conditions, and achieved my best
score yet as a Rover with 10 bands. 

Most importantly, I gained some additional Microwave operating experience and had fun. For me
personally it’s not about the score, it’s the personal challenge to operate from each new
location and support other Weak signal operators, and making new friendships in the hobby.


AA2SD/R making a lunch stop in MD at a local deli in route to Delaware and New Jersey
It's a testament to this Club, to have such an active base of operators and committed rovers in
support of the Mt Airy VHF Club.

Look for me During the Spring Sprints Roving During 2026 !

View pictures here


https://photos.app.goo.gl/q8CDbu7mGRrXkTsH8

73
AA2SD/R 
Scott

First time ever doing a VHF contest, now I'm hooked.

Six meter propagation was typical for January with little Es and many FT8 QSOs completed in bits and
pieces via meteor scatter.  I was pleased to make one 1296 Q65 contact for a few extra points.  I
managed a couple of SSB QSOs on 2 meters and even had one CW completion on 222 MHz.  Something was
wrong with my FM vertical or FM rigs, so I did not make QSOs on that mode this time.  I got up early
Sunday morning to try MSK and had no luck on 2m, and even the 6m meteor scatter QSOs were difficult.
 I do miss the SSB/CW action of yesteryear, but I still had plenty of fun in this contest.

6m: K3s, 200w amp, 4el LFA @20' or 80m OCFD @ 50'(tree supports)
2m: IC9700 (100w), 9el LFA @25'(push up pole)
1.25m: IC375A (30w), 15el M2 Yagi @30'(push up pole) 
70cm: IC9700 (100w), 21el M2 Yagi @27'(push up pole)
23cm: IC9700 (10w), 36el I0JXX Yagi @25'(push up pole)

Callsign: AJ6T
Contest: ARRLVHFJAN
 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
    50  FT8     51      51   34   1.0
    50  MSK1     5       5    5   1.0
   144  FT8     34      34   22   1.0
   144  Q65      1       1    1   1.0
   144  USB      2       2    2   1.0
   222  CW       1       2    1   2.0
   222  FT8     13      26   11   2.0
   222  Q65      1       2    1   2.0
   222  USB      1       2    0   2.0
   420  FT8      5      10    5   2.0
  1240  FT8      1       4    1   4.0
 Total  Both   115     139   83   1.2
Score: 11,537
1 Mult = 1.4 Q's

73, Walt

Weather conditions along the Oregon coast were fabulous for a January weekend. Unfortunately, the
propagation conditions were pitiful. I realize that CN74 and CN75 are hard grids to hear during the
best of propagation conditions but couldn't find many takers on Sunday morning. It certainly wasn't
a big help for the contest to conflict with the divisional football games.

I only have one major suggestion for future January VHF contests. Let's have the VHF contest during
the first full weekend in January to help avoid conflicting with football divisional games and
conference championships.  73's AL1VE/r   Tim

Had a great time on my second VHF contest ever. The goal was to do better than September and I
definitely did. I ran out of new stations/grids on Sunday just in time for sporadic E to show up!
The new (to me) 9700 and Create LDPA did great although snow on Sunday killed the 2m SWR for a few
hours. My homebrew 6m Moxon did great as well. Tried calling CQ on 23cm as well, but no luck this
time. Next time maybe I'll try to go portable or at least get a rotor so I don't have to go outside
and hand rotate the mast.

3 ele 6M yagi at 40', 9 ele 2m yagi at 45', 5 ele 70cm yagi at 20'

This year was a part-time effort due to family commitments and
the ongoing N1W World Wide Award activation.  I worked almost
exclusively on FT8.  Daves current station does not have a
panadapter on VHF so it made it difficult to spot the occasional
SSB stations.  There was good participation on 6 and 2, very few
stations were heard on 432.
Although FT8 is advantageous for the
typically weak signals on VHF it makes it very difficult to pass
folks to other bands.  Frankly, I had forgotten about the new
WSJT-X messaging feature until the end of the contest when a
message was displayed while I was away.
I did have one or two
contacts into E grids but sadly I did not witness any real
openings to other areas during my abbreviated activity.
Daves station played well, as usual, even at LP.  I was able to work
about  the stations I could hear which I think is a win at LP!
Dave even jumped in to tweak the output power while I was
operating.
Many thanks to Dave Robbins, K1TTT for the use of his
station and to everyone else for the Qs!
73 and See you in June!

Used an indoor fan dipole and 90 Watts.

As with most January contests, propagation was near non-existent.  Other than the ocassional Es on 6
meters long distance contacts were hard to come by.    I was forced out of the contest 7 hours early
due to high SWR caused by snow and & ice at my location.

"We need more local activity in these VHF Contests!"

Nice contest   TOOOOO bad FT8 has taken over - Very much lack of
none digital participation - makes me wonder why I contest and
even more so why even be a rover

Contest window used 2026-01-16 1900Z to 2026-01-19 0359Z
QSOs=100 Mults(sum of grids per band)=62
13CM grids=1
23CM grids=2
2M grids=11
6M grids=41
70CM grids=7

Saturday only operation. Not very busy. Worked a few rovers. Missed Sunday as the rovers would have
been circling my grid. Oh well. Had some fun. Here's the blog post
https://k5nd.net/2026/01/january-2026-vhf-contest-single-op-portable-saturday-only/

K7YO operating from fixed CN85.

Best QRB is 2461km for KC6NKK at DM14

very pour contest. with my station ishould have been able to do much better.  but because of ft8 it
is nothing now. need to get an analog contest. 73 Matt ka0pqw

I had a lot of fun it was a good contest I worked 2 grids on Saturday and quit about 5pm PST time to
watch the Sea Hawks destroy, the 49ers GO SEAHAWKS!! 

ON Sunday I found out I left my drive-up mount that I use for my 220 antenna in CN87 at the dog
park. I was in CN98 had to improvise a mount. I put it between 2 cement blocks on the MT road and
braced it with some rocks to keep it up it worked 

I wish 6 meters would open up for the contest

Great Fun, Thanks everone!

Using Kenwood tm-255 that put out 40 watts so put 80-watt vhf amplifier which helps Looking at power
meter to vert show 90-watts, 2 Years ago I Wase using Icom IC-703mk2g that put out 40-watts but
don't have it anymore.

3rd year operating from Block Island RI. Slow contest but still fun! had an issue with mast for 432
& 1296 kept leaning in the wind on the island. Anyways Q count was a little lower than last year by
Sunday evening I found we had worked most of the stations out. However Sunday afternoon we did have
a nice 6 meter opening to the southwest worked EM12! conditions tough on 1296 and 903 with local
stations. Found many stations on FT8 not sure if its just based on conditions.

WORKED FROM QTH

First VHF contest ever! IC-9700 at 70W into an Ed Fong DBJ-2
temporarily taped to my 2nd floor balcony with clear packing tape.
Tried both vertical and horizontal polarization to see what worked
better. HOA won't let me put up real antennas, and all the 3-story
townhouses packed in here pretty much block line-of-sight from my 2nd
floor in every direction. The DBJ-2 bandwidth on 440 wasn't quite
right to hit the SSB calling frequency, so I stuck to 2m. Only made
one QSO but it was a rush when it finally happened - even if they were
in the same grid square as me! Looking forward to trying again.

I am happy to participate in this event.

January is often tricky with ever-changing weather forecasts, which can prompt driving route
changes. SSB activity was almost non-existent in my areas, so I worked 99% FT8. Saturday was cold
and windy while Sunday was a rainy all day. I roved through eight grids and worked 19, the farthest
being ~1200 miles on 6m. This contest yielded neither my best nor my worst results. Regardless, I
enjoyed the weekend and look forward to doing it again in June!

Operated only infrequently due to family commitments. Had fun,
but seemed to be very few stations participating. Several
equipment challenges further impeded making QSOs, including
losing the 6 meter antenna when changing locations on the
highway, terminal failure of the Icom IC-746 used for 2 meter
digital, and a bad coax transmission line to the 1.25 meter
antenna. Eventually fixed all except the IC-746, resulting in no
2 meter FT8. Only one QSO on 927.5 MHz.

Best QRB is 53km for AI7ID at DN13

Added 902-10GHz last year.  First time to try it out.  Saturday was all set up, cables, mounting the
dish and transverter etc.  Got on the air 2 pm Sunday.  Cold, rainy, soaked.  This was all about
testing, not scoring, so I say now.  The goal was testing for June prep when I go back up into the
mountains.  

Never got outside my local grid.  Never heard any calling CQ on PH on 2, 6, 222, 432.  Called CQ
relentlessly and turned to rotor.  Did raise some locals and ran the four low bands twice.  Early
evening K1TEO and I tried.  We can usually at least one of four low bands, but not this time, not
even a tickle in the noise floor which was S3 to S5.

No one around here had 902 and up so I could not test 902 to 3400. This morning wife heard on 902
into the FT8800 50 feet away, so at least that band is doing something.  Tried to hear beacons on
902 and 1296 but all have terrain between us, didnt hear them on 902/1296.  Did hear the closer LOS
ones that had 2m/70cm.

Did discover some problems.  Need to lengthen my 5G/10G control cable.  Need to rehang my antenna's
for better balance, need to pin or tighten or replace the connectors (muffler clamps) between the
mast segments (camo net tubes). This morning the winch controller refused to work properly and then
to cap it all off for the first time in 22 years the Jeep refused to start.  Ran good last night but
not now.

Guess thats what testing is all about.  Find the faults, improve the system.
Had a good time, achieved what I set out to do (test) but with bad results (was it me on the
location/propagation?).  Hope for June springs eternal!!!!

73 
John 
KM4KMU

Pretty slow contest for me except Sunday afternoon when the band opened for a while.

A good turn out, especially for January.
It was nice to get some 2m/70cm SSB (DSB) contacts this go around on a
Quansheng, all from SOTA activators.
I tried calling CQ in CW, but there were no takers.

Thanks to everyone that worked with me during the contest. Despite the solar storm conditions, I
managed a few contacts over FT8, FM, and a couple over CW. See you all later this year for more VHF
activity- 73!

Lots of Fun!

First contest. Super fun. Got some elevation with my 5 watt HT. It was
chaos at times trying to pull call signs out of the nationwide calling
frequency on 2meter. But part of the thrill. Last QSO of the day was
essentially a "summit to summit" over 300 miles away! I did not see
that coming. So cool.

I had been involved in the World Wide Award activity on HF, and
almost forgot about the VHF contest, so got a bit of a late
start.  Funny how quiet things got when the Seahawks game
started.  No openings of note (that I heard anyway), but still
lots of fun, good to hear some new calls, and the SOTA activity
was a nice plus.  Thanks for the QSOs!

Contest slow and very cold out Saturday. I went out twice portable on Sunday. There was unusual
sporadic-E on 6 Meters to W7. First to Idaho and Montana, later to Arizona, Nevada and southern
California. Sunday afternoon open to east coast starting around 3 pm local time and then to Florida.
Really lit up Florida on the psk reporter! I saw PY4AQA on Es - TEP once. Not bad for an old
MFJ-9406 and small yagi. Same MFJ-9406 I took to Kauai in November and ran Japan.

Very poor propagation on Saturday and into Sunday afternoon.  Picked up Sunday afternoon on 6m and
was good through 6 PM local in Oklahoma.

10 GHz does work through the wall of the house in case you are wondering! I worked AF1T and W1FKF
both in this manner. We even switched to FM mode with success as well! Also worked WA1T over 50
miles away on a new to me band of 33cm using 1W FM out of a Retevis RT10 HT and a Yagi.

Operated portable from Mohawk Mtn in Cornwall, CT

Log merged from WSJT-X and HamRS, FT8 and FM QSOs.

I operated as a rover from 2 different grid squares on 6 bands using
SSB or FM: 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, and 23cm. I managed to get 69
contacts and activate 3 different POTA parks that I operated from on
50MHz and above. I enjoy Parks on the Air and hope that by operating
in the VHF contests from POTA parks, it encourages others to try VHF
and UHF.

Almost another 6M FT8 contest. Saturday had heavy snow on Long Island
so SWRs tripped amps and I shut down for about three hours. Pockets
of
E's so nice surprise in January. Similar conditions Sunday, after
melting snow and ice started up again around 2200 so I called it a
day. had some fun so objective met.

very cold and snow predicted for Sat and Sun. Nasty weather for
rovers! Saturday technical problem... no digi modes! 5:00am Sunday morning
deleted all software for flex and wsjtx the restarted and got the digital
modes working! msk144 then ft8 until Ice storm stopped me sunday nite!

Conditions were generally poor for the contest except for a couple
of short openings to the west and east on 6m. This was our first
run in this newly set-up rover and while we had some issues, we
were mostly pleased with performance. We noticed that others heard
much better than us on 6m and we were reminded that a 6m antenna
right off the top of the vehicle is a bad idea. We'll fix this
for June!

See https://n5zy.org/2026-arrl-january-vhf-contest
For my complete soapbox and photos.
The 3-steps for rovering:
Step 1: Make a plan. This can consume a LOT of time.. an entire weekend and several evenings after
work.
Step 2: Forget the plan because nothing ever goes according to the plan.
Step 3: Improvise wildly and pretend this was the plan all along.

Only 480 miles this time—a few hundred short of my goal—but the radios were just providing
static noise and not any QSOs. Murphy was my co-pilot this weekend. I committed to rovering weeks
earlier based on “warmer than normal” forecasts, spoiler alert: that forecast was wrong a teensy
bit.

Saturday morning at 5:30 AM, 19°F outside, and my car battery greeted me at 12.2V. A little voice
said “that’s your warning not to go.” I told that voice to be quiet, spent an hour on the
trickle charger, and headed out—only one hour behind schedule. What could go wrong?

I arrived at Lake Lawtonka with no time to charge before Mount Scott. I launched N1MM and
encountered a cascade of error messages—database corruption.. I downloaded SQLite tools, performed
emergency database first aid, and departed for the mountain just in time.

Mount Scott was brutal. Mid-20s with 50 mph gusts. In a moment of questionable judgment, I decided
to assemble the 3-element 6m beam on the roof. The wind persistently shoved me into my antenna mast,
which I suppose was preferable to the alternative of becoming Oklahoma’s first airborne ham
casualty of 2026. Numb fingers meant dropped hardware and needing pliers for turning simple PL-259
connectors. Tourists kept yelling “Whatcha doing?” through their car windows. I resisted the
urge to shout back “Just enjoying the thrill of hanging on for my life!” or “Get out of your
warm car and come have a look!” LOL!

Sunday morning, Starlink went completely offline. I had unknowingly exhausted my 10 GB monthly
allotment (I use it daily to/from work). Surprise! Tired, cold, frustrated, and logging few
contacts. Then the grand finale: after a pleasant 2m FM simplex chat, I told the locals I would
drive a mile to the next grid line. I put the car in drive, proceeded under the first tree, heard a
noise, and saw coax dangling down the back window—I had forgotten to lower the 6m loop. I found my
antenna and carbon fiber mast in a ditch looking rather sorry for themselves. The steel mast was
bent back 20°.

With 6m now a pile of regret in my backseat and no internet, I did what any sensible operator would
do: procured a Braum’s cheeseburger and headed home!

The new 10 GHz gear never made it out of the vehicle given that I would be asking someone else to go
stand outside in these conditions for 30 min and make a QSO with me. It just didn’t feel like
something a person should ask a friend to do.

Silver linings: My Kia Niro EV averaged 1.8-1.9 mi/kWh despite the cold and antenna windload,
charging reliably at 50 kW. My N5ZY Co-Pilot app performed admirably after a few field
adjustments—tracking battery voltage, grid changes, syncing WSJT-X logs to N1MM, and beaconing to
APRS (until Starlink expired). The new Samlex PST-600-12 DC/AC inverter was significantly quieter. I
added a second 300AH LiFePO4 battery (starlink is hungry). I added a Victron Energy SmartShunt with
bluetooth for my “N5ZY Co-Pilot” app. I stopped using Gaia GPS maps and exclusively used CalTopo
along with kml files I created using Anthropic’s claude.ai. I’ve found claude.ai to be an
indispensable tool for creating KML files, writing Python code, etc.

Mt Erie Wa.

Lots of SOTA Challenge S2S and chasers.  Lots of V/U weak signal fun!

This one snuck up on me, preparation-wise, and of course the pickings
tend to be slim over here in the Nevada desert on the east side of the
Sierras, but I got a few California and local contacts, thanks to the
small group of friendly local hams, and then I had a lot of fun with
6m FT8, which was my first time giving that band/mode an extended try.
Based on these results I'll definitely do it again! Thanks everyone
who listened for me, especially the Nevada hams. 73 everyone.

Went mountain bike mobile and climbed to a local hill.
Out of breath, but was able to make a single contact.
Worth it!

Before a contest I usually repair or improve something that showed up in the last one, and then I
look forward to trying them out. This time I was looking to see how the new shack computers and an
update of WSJT-X to ver 3 RC1 would perform. 

The computers were hand-me-downs after upgrading MYL and my main computers to W11. Our former HP
workstations were hand-me-downs deemed by MS to be unworthy of W11, but with the workaround
suggestions made by WZ1V, they loaded W11 just fine.  Some of the contesting software then had to be
installed and configured; had a few stumbles but were now FB.

The latest and improved version of FT-8 now does multithread decoding, uses a-priori algorithms from
past decodes, and other magic to be capable of digging even deeper below the noise level. In
monitoring signals over the last few months, I saw many decodes well below a -20dB S/N ratio, many
with the AP tag.
My hope was that I would hear (see) more stations, and they would hear (see) my low power station. I
believe that was the case. It is wonderful to see that the signal processing and communications
theory courses I took decades ago during EE college are now here in amateur radio! 

Got off to a slow start on Saturday afternoon. Signals seemed unusually weak- and it seemed hard to
work anyone. When my MYL returned home from her errands, she commented that our hill was being
covered with heavy wet crunchy snow, yet 2 miles away she said there was none. Likely that was
sticking to the antennas, detuning them, and spoiling their directivity. It continued to snow the
wet stuff, enveloping us in an attenuator. A low-level line noise made its presence known as well.
When I quit for the evening, I was bummed.

Enough whining! On Sunday afternoon when I got back on after snow cleaning, church service, and
lunch, “things” had greatly improved and I was very busy playing radio in SO3R. A few weak E’s
showed up on 6M but their infrequent appearances were short and fleeting. I logged only a handful of
those. Trying
FT-4 produced nothing. After dinner I soon wore out my eyes (aka FT-8 ears) watching 3 decode
windows every 15 seconds, mouse clicking, constantly switching antenna selectors, and turning the 2
rotators. Great fun in the end! 

Big Duh: I had checked out the station the week before and found it curious that I could not copy
any beacons on 222 MHz. An analyzer said the antennas and feedlines were OK all the way up to the
transverter, and it made the usual 4 watts when keyed. I incorrectly concluded that something may
have failed inside the transverter, so I did not bother to power it up at the start. In the middle
of sleeping Saturday night I vaguely remembered having messed with the K3’s transverter settings
for 222 last spring. Taking a break from the action Sunday afternoon, I checked the K3
configuration, and sure enough, I had messed it up by assigning 221 MHz to a 28 MHz IF. OOPS!
Corrected that and made a few calls on 222 that were soon rewarded by distant contacts with WN3A and
K8GP. 


Thanks all and 73,
Chet, N8RA

EME (Earth-Moon-Earth)

Man plans, God laughs.  Set the rover up on Friday night, rechecked the 16-grid route and weather.
had two locals who were going to follow me to through the first two grid convergences, and then the
cold that had been chasing me for three days caught me.  I was so sick that I missed three days of
work.  At least i made a couple of contacts.

Lousy prop and stuck using a 2 band vertical for 2/70c.

Ontario VHF Association

For the next contest, allow points for CW, phone, digi, same station, same band, same grid

This contest is always done under winter conditions, but this year
was
extreme ! We had snow and blowing snow with very cold temperatures
which severely limited portable operations. In spite of this Jeff
VE4GA did go out on the wide open spaces to give me a 10GHz QSO.
Fortunately the rig has a high stability OCXO reference.  With the
wind it felt like -33 deg F.
One local station VE4VEB used an IC-905 so he was able to comfortably
operate on 2.3 and 5.7 GHz!
Bill K0AWU is a regular QSO partner over a 393 km obstructed path,
but
we had great aircraft scatter contacts on all bands from 144 to 1296
MHz

Terrible conditions once again, I saw only a couple stations on 6m FT8, only got one.  No 6m
openings and lack of close in stations, led to another dismal Jan outing.

6 Meters FM - Alinco DR-06T w/ TE Systems 0510G amp 75 watts, 2 Meters FM - Kenwood TR751A 25 watts,
1.25 Meters FM - Alinco DR-CS25T 50 watts, 70 Cm FM - IC-47A 25 watts, outdoor omni antennas up
20-25 feet

Thanks for the contacts. 73 - Dan, W1QK

Conditions were poor as I was looking for new grids for the VUCC
award.

Moving up frequencies to higher bands has become more difficult due, in part, no mostly, to FT8. The
wsjt-x folks have worked very hard on a great messaging feature to help replicate FT8 contacts on
higher bands, but we're just not getting many people to use the feature.

CHECK LOG SUBMISSION

Activated 13 grids as a rover but had to abort early due to a coffee overload headache.  The DM90-4
was tough sledding due to the surrounding geography.  6m was mostly dead except for a glimmer
opening to So Calif on Sunday. No tropo openings.  But I didn't snag any low hanging tree branches
which made this event a win.  Let's see some more analog signals besides K5LLL's big station.  CU in
June.

The ARRL Contest coincided with the San Bernardino Microwave Society
(SBMS) 9cm activity day.  This event was part of the SBMS celebration
of its 70th year anniversary.  10 Amateurs had operational 9cm radios
on the air on this day.  For more information on the SBMS go to
W6IFE.com.

Could not get the locals to get on 2 meter simplex for contacts...

In memory of N4MM silent key just before the VHF contest in FM09.

Operated 6 meters only using a Par Electronics Moxon antenna. Antenna did a great job.

Was only able to operate on Sunday, and even
then it was part-time. Caught a short opening on
6m to the Gulf coast. Good fun! Thanks for the
QSOs and 73, Ron (W8RU).

HORRIBLE propagation, also snow causing antenna VSWR problems.

Did better than I expected! Got off to a late start on Saturday and had to
shut down for a few hours on Sunday due to wet snow on the antennas (and to
go shovel it)!

Sporatic E was just that until late Sunday afternoon when there was a pretty
good opening from NJ to the Southeast.

Can't wait for June!

was on my way to getting to better my  score from last year until I took a fall on the ice going
from shack to house Saturday night for a nap. 
Band was open on 6m with sometimes multiple  enhancements up to 300 miles plus

99% FT8 - not much fun anymore just staring at a computer
screen....I did that when I was working and tired of it

CLUB SBMS  San Bernardino Microwave Society
Operated from more than one ARRL section, Orange and Los Angeles

The ARRL January VHF event continues to be a challenge for QRP
portable operators like me that are in the Northeast US with regards
to both weather conditions and band conditions.  This year, we saw
snow showers on both days, with some rain showers in between that made
setup of the antennas a bit slow.  When it snowed harder on Sunday
morning, I had to periodically shake the snow from the antennas to
prevent issues with loading.
For the 2026 event, there was some spotty Sporadic-E at the beginning
of the contest, and I was able to work WB2FKO in Florida shortly after
the start of the contest. There were no more enhanced Sporadic-E
conditions during the time that I was at my hilltop location for
Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  I am grateful for WA1T in New
Hampshire (FN43) for pulling out my CW signal on Two Meters during
Sunday morning which brightened up a very snowy morning.
I am grateful for the stations located in or near my grid (FN30 and
FN31) that provided me with QSOs across the lower four VHF bands -
WZ1V, K1TEO, WB2JAY, N2SLO, and KE2CCG.  This represented 80 percent
of my score, and I thank them very much for the points that I needed.
I still wish that the ARRL would seriously consider trimming the
January VHF Contest period by at least three hours as the main bands,
Six Meters and Two Meters are very quiet for much of the day on
Sunday.   Also, there must be a way to promote more SSB and CW
activity.

POTA activation at US-0225; no one answered on 6m.
2m Arrow yagi on an aluminum mast, held by my truck bed.

Analog Only category, dupes left in