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Soapbox for 2022
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AA6QI |
Wondering why the Pasadena Radio Club doesn't appear on the Affiliated Clubs list since it is an ARRL affiliated club. |
AA6XA |
Not a lot of activity on Saturday. Stayed on the summit for about four hours. Looking forward to January when things should pick up again. |
AF4JF/R |
Using SDR Pluto. |
AF7GL [photo/doc] |
Last minute change of plans due to forest fires. Active only on Saturday for about 6 hours. Windy conditions, cracked mast, and not the best propagation. Many station did not hear me even after raising power. Ended up operating only on 144, 432, 1296. Thanks for all the Qs! |
AG6AO/R |
First log submission. Handheld 9 element Yagi on 23cm. VX6R HT on 222 / 432. |
AK0MR |
6m only |
AL1VE [photo/doc] |
Every few years or so, Ken KL7P travels down from Fairbanks to work the Sept VHF contest with big brother Tim AL1VE. This year we ran a LM station. Set up on top of Mt. Crag in CN87, we managed 100 QSOs or so, split on SSB and digital. The view was better than the band conditions, until heavy smoke from fires east and south rolled in. Software issues (read: operator error) spoiled our Sunday morning MS plans. Little brother Bill KG4UPN worked the contest on his own in Tacoma, but showed up Sunday afternoon to help us tear down the antenna farm and carry it back to Tim??s QTH. We celebrated the fun weekend with an adult beverage, and uttered the contester??s eternal vow, ??Next Year!? |
K0BAK/R [photo/doc] |
[I submitted extensive comments in a Word doc upload.] |
K0SCO |
Well, it's better than last year. |
K1CT |
Hurricane Kate scuttled plans to go mountain topping. |
K1HC |
Thanks to all the rovers out there! It was a real slog with flat band conditions. |
K1MD |
Activity might be enhanced if contacts via muliple modes would count as new contacts. |
K2AXX |
Spent the day Saturday fixing 6m antenna and putting rotor back in tower. Worked a few stations, had some fun. Shaking down the station a bit in preparation for what's yet to come! Thanks for all the QSOs and patience! Good to be back after almost 10 years off the air! Mark, K2AXX |
K2JB/R [photo/doc] |
It was a soggy start to the Sept VHF Contest. The K2JB/R Tower of Low Power looked very small in comparison to the one n the background on top of Viking Mountain in EM86. |
K2OEQ |
Last January, my wife and I decided we would like to go to Cape Cod for a week in the Fall and made reservations at a small motel in North Eastham. Last month, as we we were solidifying our plans for Cape Cod, I realized that we would be there during the VHF contest and would be located in FN51, which is >90% Atlantic Ocean. I told my wife that it was my duty to activate FN51 during the contest! I put together a small 6M station consisting of an IC-706 and a "Saturn 6" (horizontal - mobile - 1960s) antenna, with a 15 ft mast. I planned on just operation FT-8, since I would be using a small, low antenna. Although the IC-706 is rated at 100W (PEP), I turned it down to 40-50W for the 50% duty cycle of FT-8. Even then, it got pretty hot and I added a small external fan for the long periods of calling CQ. I only made 31 contacts, in 8 grids (farthest was FN22), but was only using an onmi antenna, and there was no one to the east or south of me for thousands of miles. (maybe a small directional antenna would be better next time) Did not rack up a big score, but had fun and gave 31 stations a multiplier that would not have had otherwise. 73, Duncan K2OEQ |
K3FR |
Spent a lot of time fighting the rig and SO2R setup after a very late start. A lot of time doing nothing made up for the lack of propagation enhancement. Oh well, there's four months to the January contest!! |
K3SK |
Glad to be back in the VHF contest game. I wish propagation was back also. |
K3WGR |
For Rover stations this contest and others on VHF (multi-band) ( 222 & Up excluded) has turned into an FT8 affair. Too many stations are not actively soliciting SSB and CW contacts. For all the work it is to build a 10 band station ( fixed or rover) we are seeing a lot less participation in the higher frequencies. FT8 is an excellent creation but for use in DX peditions, and Contests it takes away from the overall objective of any given contest. There are also quite few stations attempting or actually using automatic FT8 stations, and others should take the time before and in betewen contests to learn how to use and operate ft8 in an intelligent manner. Stop calling CQ if you do not want to answer stations calling you K3WGR |
K4YRK |
could not put much time in this contest. |
K5LLL |
Worst propagation and activity I've seen in years. No digital modes used other than CW. |
K5QE |
Conditions were truly awful. We had to slug it out on all the bands except 1296. That was our only bright spot. |
K5TRP |
Conditions weren't good, I used an Icom IC-746, 6M moxon, 2M tape measure yagi fixed north. I heard K4EA in EM74 on 144.200MHz but did not manage to work him. |
K6EEN |
RV-based station in DM04 on a 54 inch telescoping whip. |
K8LF |
Was hapy to work KE4WMF/R a member of our local club and youtuber who has built out an impressive rover station. Also made a couple of contacts on FM simplex with a local who had his HT at work near by. I wish 6M would have had an opening. |
K9WKJ |
was real tough going |
KA0CRO |
Fun to operate the family station and hear the other operators say "I want to work the Three-fer " ! |
KA0OUV |
Band was not having any of it. Got some kinks worked out on the radio-software interfacing. Need more aluminum in the air. |
KA0PQW |
Fun contest. good activity for a sept contest. Thanks 73 Matt ka0pqw |
KA7RRA/R |
I had a lot of fun my 1st stop was CN88,I was A rover in Lake Stevens, and my battery died. I lost about a hour waiting for the tow company to start me cost 100 clams I wish more hams would enter either has a fixed station or as a rover the contest are a lot of fun Dave KA7RRA/R |
KB0MRK |
Fun to have people calling us and saying "I want to work the Three-Fer"! |
KB0ZOM |
Whoohoo nine qsos! So little propagation...so little time |
KB2KIR |
Phone contacts were a little scarce compared to years past, mostly FT8. BTW, I worked the entire contest exclusively on solar/battery power. This included the station computers and the KW SSPA on 2. |
KB2SA [photo/doc] |
Being in San Diego, CA, the EU operating window was under 1 hour total. Picked up VK2JDS in the early morning. WA6PY very graciously engaged with an SSB QSO right before contest close. |
KB4BKV |
It was definitely a different contest than June! The relatively quiet 6m band allowed greater focus to the upper bands at a bit more leisurely pace. Meteor scatter using MSK144 seemed to be the only long-haul activity on 6m Saturday night and Sunday morning. Looking forward to January. |
KB7IOG |
Thanks for all the contacts. |
KB8W |
My fifth September VHF QSO party entry. Some Es all day Saturday but mostly not enough for contacts. |
KC0P/R |
September is nice weather, but it gets dark too soon. Nice to have the fixed stations looking for Rovers ! |
KC1RET [photo/doc] |
This is my first real contest entry. I built a 2el 6m yagi from wire and PVC pipe the day before the contest! |
KC2NRU |
Had limited operation time due to family events and the kiddos. With a 2m/432 halo antenna and a EFHW for 6m I felt pretty restricted by my own setup. That will hopefully change in the near future (before January). Struggled here in FN13 with contacts that were outside of the local area. Only two contacts on 432 and neither were in my home grid. Lets hope January is less painful! |
KC6NKK |
WORKED FROM QTH |
KC8KSK |
Operated portable from FM03 |
KD2TAI/R |
This is a test of my SDR ultra-low power (~100mW) roving kit. It seems excellent for local 3x3 grids! Check out the project documentation (still working on it): https://www.notion.so/hisenzhang/SDR-Rover-Kit-507d380b8cbf42409bbbc8ab439f5d61 In the next contest, try to reach many more stations and see how this kit works as a "real" rover. Some rambling notes: Ever tried driving for 12 hours in a day? You need to send some sleepless college kids to rove and give them caffeine pills and energy drinks :) so that they can still attend Monday's 10AM class :( |
KD6EFQ/R |
Very poor propogation conditions experienced Saturday likely due to Huricane Kay winds and precip disturbing local atmosphere. More poor propogation until late Sunday afternoon; no DX Portable antenna: 50 MHZ HO loop on a modest mast used First success on 1.2G with another rover station using portable discone. Diamond X50 vertical on a wood mast used for 2m/70cm when portable. Vehical mounted vertical antennas for most other contacts. Went to various locations in San Diego County including local summits DM12 at the Torrey Pines Glider Port and DM13 Julian CA 4000' |
KE1R |
NOTHING BEYOND NEW ENGLAND AND MIDWEST, BUT GOOD TO SEE THE PARTICIPATION. |
KG5HFO |
My 2nd contest. Finally got a decent 6 meter antenna and it made a WORLD of difference. Not too shabby for living in an HOA! |
KG7KMV |
spent more time fiddling with entering the log than I did working the contest. May not send in logs next time, not worth it for casual contesting. |
KJ1K |
RoverLog is terrific! |
KK4BZ |
Radios - Icom IC-746 (6m, 2m all mode), TYT TH-9800 (6m, 2m, 70cm FM), and Baofeng UV-5R (2m, 70cm FM). Antennas - 134ft OCFD wire at 10m in trees (6m), Diamond X50A vertical (2m, 70cm), homebrew 4-element cubic quad (2m), HT rubber ducky (2m, 70cm). |
KM5RG |
Very slow contest. |
KM6SJO [photo/doc] |
5W HT ONLY Worked from Round Valley Regional Preserve, south of Brentwood, Contra Costa Co., Calif. Grid Square CM97CU, 1140' elevation. Photo attached is looking North. |
KO9A |
Tough sledding this year! Storms in the area kept local noise sources quiet but also hurt tropo potential. Saw interesting 2m & up enhancement between storm waves and was surprised to complete long shots to EN34 and EM96 in the middle of hard rain. Analog only didn't seem to move the needle here. A gentle request to analog only ops: PLEASE CQ and CQ often! No idea you are QRV if you aren't actively making noise. One of the digital benefits is the inherent "noise" and CQing that naturally occurs on those modes. It's easy to find others on digi. Try to match that on analog. CQ!!! This contest had some of the best meteor scatter I've ever seen for a Sep contest, but many stations seemed deaf, especially out East. Also didn't notice any big stations out east hammering away on CW/SSB meteor scatter. Conditions were good enough to support it...bummer no one out east seemed to be trying! Hope to see you in January - fingers crossed for decent weather! 73 Jim KO9A |
KV4ZY |
Casual operating just for fun. |
N0HZO/R |
Seem like just the same calls over and over again. |
N0LD |
Took some time away from rovering to work from home with limited antennas and limited radios. Just pioneering setting the station up for fixed. |
N1ADX |
I was at my summer cabin/camp for this weekend. QTH is Westminster West, VT. FN33. |
N1SFE |
OPERATED ON THE LOWER FOUR BANDS: 6, 2, 222 AND 432. ANALOG ONLY LOW POWER. |
N2PA |
IT WAS GOOD TO BE BACK AGAIN ON THE AIR FOR 2022 SEPT VHF CONTEST. EVEN WITH JUST 4 BANDS AND SOME COMPROMISED ANTENNAS, IT WAS FUN. REASONABLE ACTIVITY OVERALL,ROVERS MAKE IT INTERESTING AND MUCH APPRECIATION FOR THEIR EFFORTS !! WE HOPE TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS, MAYBE EVEN ADDING BANDS IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS/ YEARS. N2JQR FOR N2PA |
N3YY [photo/doc] |
Was a rough weekend. Really had to work for every single Q . Kept hoping and waiting for 6m to let me make a run on SSB Phone , but that didn't happen. Instead 6 was hit or miss, 2m tropo helped alot as well as more 432. Made some FM Q's with non contesters 2m FM and even a 440 FM contact from up here in the middle of nowhere. 2100 ft Elevation and a far horizon were on my side but conditions were not. Slept from about 3am to 5am Sunday. Kept BiC as much as possible. Lots of rovers and that was cool. Many in EM and EN land had great patience with trying and trying to complete a Q . Ran spare 6m and 2m yagi's in the front yard, fixed down the east coast while i was S&P with the towered yagi's everywhere else. Either way had a great time up on the mountain, off grid, Solar powered, battery bank. Thanks everyone for all the Q's ! |
N4BMX |
I'll take it for a bunch of HOA attic antenna's.. Fun times. |
N5BNO/R |
RoverLog is terrific! |
N5QYC |
Was a hard contest for what few contacts I was able to put in the log. operated from EM36 QRP using my Ic-718 and a series of transverters for 6,2,and 432. Conditions were Terrible. But I hung on the best I could. Even a bad condition contest can be fun if you keep trying! 73, Joe N5QYC |
N6DRE |
Very quiet, first time I've been able to work every station I heard. |
N6IC |
No long range propagation even tho the SFI was good... |
N6JSO/R |
I wasn't feeling well this weekend, so my big Rover ambitions were reduced to a few hours of operating in my own gridsquare. Maybe next time! |
N6LB/R |
It was my perfect plan to add the Qso party with the end of a week vacation. Reservation made camping and radio. When we woke up Saturday morning to our camp host told us that there was a fire evacuation. The Bolt Creek fire was coming toward us. Lucky the station was already setup in the backseat and I was able to operate all the way home . |
N6VI |
Just handed out contacts for a few hours.conditions were not great. |
N6ZE/R |
A few hours of operating relatively unsophisticated gear in 3 poor locations and 1 good location yielded pretty good results for me! From my one good location in the Santa Monica Mts, I operated Low Power SSB on 6m, 2m, & 70 cm with mag mount vertical antennas; for 135cm, I operated Low Power on FM only with a mag mount vertical antenna. For the 33cm & 23cm bands, I operated QRP with stock ALINCO handhelds with ALINCO supplied whips From my 3 Conejo Valley locations, I used the gear described above, but I also operated SOTA style with only the ALINCO handhelds from Tarantula Hill in Thousand Oaks, a walkup trail which has obscuring mountain ranges in most directions. I did manage QSOs with a number of operators who belong to the 4 Ventura County radio clubs. I do hope that some of them will take the plunge and participate in future VHF/UHF events. |
N7CKJ/R [photo/doc] |
No propagation to speak of, but was able to shake down the new 60Ah lithium battery, charger and portable solar panels. The remote site was RFI quiet, but the cheap Chinese MPPT charger trashed 6 Meters, so I'm off to GigaParts for a better brand. Hopefully, I'll have better things to report, next June. |
N7EPD |
High QRN Saturday from power lines and way lower participation this year. Lowest score in a long time. |
N8GA |
Not much in the way of openings, but we had a 432 EME setup to work with and netted a couple of extra grids. I think we'll be trying that again, although maybe not in January, as it was a portable setup. As always, we had a lot of fun! |
N8HK |
A rainy weekend on top of Mount Oglethorpe, flat propagation |
NZ1I |
Bad Conditions. |
VA3OGG |
First licensed Oct 2019 |
VE2BAP/R [photo/doc] |
Mobile (rover) on Mount Radar, elevation 2200 feet. 50 MHz: Icom IC-7100, 100 Watts, HB9CV 2 el. horizontal antenna 144 MHz: Icom IC-700 with amplifier, 200 Watts, yagi 5 el. horizontal antenna 432 MHz: vertical mobile magnet-mount antenna (at least I tried!) A lot of fun! I will participate next year for sure! |
VE3DS |
Summer went by too fast! Great to get on during the Sept contest, even though I couldn't really spend a lot of time on Saturday to start. Great to run the bands with our Ontario VHF Association members and our neighbours like the Rochester VHF Group. Running analog is a challenge and I find it more rewarding on CW to dig those signals out. Didn't really miss the FT8 and MS stuff this time. Propagation was spotty at times, with rain and wind moving across the Province here. I did have a failure of the 2304 antenna and dead 5760 transverter which was a disappointment but managed one 3456 Mhz contact on this side of the border with VE3ZV. We will return for January on 3401 and 5760. This is my 52nd Sept Contest!! 73 Dana VE3DS |
VE3LFS |
FN04AT |
VE3MSC |
The 10-day due date for logs is too tight, especially for those of us who do the September VHF and then the 10GHz contests, which are on consecutive weekends. I'm still exhausted from those two events! Can we get 30 days please? |
VE3OIL/R |
BAND QSOs MULTS 50 88 20 144 94 23 222 42 12 432 39 12 902 24 9 1.2G 25 9 2.3G 12 8 3.4G 2 1 5.7G 7 5 10G 4 1 24G 6 6 123G 6 6 LIGHT 2 2 |
VE3SMA |
My transmitted mode is shown for cross-mode contacts Log contains 3 duplicate QSOs not counted in claimed score Equipment - 50 MHz FTDX10 100 W, dipole 144 MHz K2+DEMI Xvtr+B2518G 100W,dipole & FT-290RII 25W,GP indoors 222 MHz K2 + XV222 20 W, 7 el Yagi indoors 432 MHz K2+MMT432/28 xvtr 10W,10el Yagi & FT-818 6W+GP(ants indoors) 903 MHz K2 + HB Rx Conv + HB TX 5 W, 7 el Yagi indoors 1296 MHz FT-290R + MM xvtr + amp 6W, 10el Yagi indoors 2304 MHz FT-290R + HB xvtr 1W, 9 el Yagi indoors 10 GHz K2 + 2m xvtr + DB6NT xvtr + amp 2 W, 2ft. dish indoors |
VE7BGP |
I did not have much time for this contest this year 73 Gerry |
W0GN |
The paracord halyard supporting my dipole frayed and broke just as conditions on six were improving! |
W1QK |
Thank you for sponsoring the contest, 73 - Dan, W1QK |
W2QL |
Thanks to those operators who could hear my 5 w signal. I was using a FT817nd and a MFJ Moxon (6 m) or Arrow 3 ele yagi (2 m) on a tripod in a spare 3rd floor bedroom! |
W4IU |
Limited propagation. PH non-existent !!! Please consider points for FT8 *AND* additional pts for PH on the came band/contact!!! Keep PH (FM/SSB alive !!!!) |
W6HHS |
This QSO was just to get on the board, as we only had two club members present. This was toward the end of our contest operating time, as it was getting too hot. So we got one QSO for W6HHS. |
W7IMC |
My first VHF contest and a study in time and motion efficiency. 220 is alive and well in my neck of the woods and provided an effective scoring opportunity. 73 W7IMC |
W7TZ |
NOT A PARTICULARLY GOOD SHOWING FOR ME. NO EVIDENCE OF PROPAGATION IN THE "PACIFIC TRIANGLE". ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, I CAUGHT A NEW GRID. |
WA1LBK |
GREAT tropo, good activity levels! |
WA2VNV |
Took a while to get the FT8 contacts imported into the W3KM VHF Log correctly. The import process somehow made all the FT8 50 & 144 contacts value as 2 points so I had to manually edit the entire log for accuracy and change to point values. It imported the 222 & up points correctly. Also, I had a lot of FT8 dupes just to make it more difficult to sort things out. This didn't change the Cabrillo official log entry but I just wanted a correct score. |
WA5AZQ/R |
RoverLog is terrific! |
WB2AMU [photo/doc] |
Everyone that I worked was in the same grid field (FN30). There were some decent tropo paths towards the north on Two Meters - beacons from upstate NY were heard at the beginning of the contest on Two Meters and I was able to work stations in FN22, FN23 and FN33 on Two Meters. Thanks to rover stations KG6CIH and N2SLN for providing needed points on different bands. |
WB6JJJ |
Kind of slow but I was able to make FM and SSB contacts on 6 Meters for the first time. |
WU4G |
Never heard a CW or SSB signal on 6M, same on 2M. Got no answers to my CQ's on either. Couldn't get FT8 working on borrowed 2M radio so no Q's there. Shame that an entire contest is found only in 3kHz. Should working once per mode be used to encourage more spectrum use |
WX3P |
A fun time in the woods despite 144 and 432 issues. Six was limited to nearby grids. Had my grandson help me though he??s only 10 months old. Moral support. |
WZ1V |
Analog-Only category, Dupes left in. |