Starts: 1800 UTC Saturday, July 21, 2012
Ends: 2100 UTC Sunday, July 22, 2012
The CQ VHF contest for 6M and 2M is coming up next weekend. Band conditions especially 2M has been extraordinary these last couple of weeks. There has been much tropo ducting activity up and down the east coast and some real good conditons towards the west and southwest with contacts exceeding 500 and 600 miles common. I plan on getting a 6M antenna up on the crankup tower this week. With a little help I will lower the 2M beam 4 feet and place the 5 element 6M beam about 7 feet above the HF yagi where I hope there will be only a slight effect on the radiation pattern.
If you don’t have a 6M antenna see what your antenna tuner can do by loading one of your HF antennas. It is surprising what will work on the magic band!
I also plan this week to continue the 15M monoband stacked antenna project on the tall tower to side mount a rotor at the 75 ft elevation. I’m looking for ground crew volunteers who would like a free lunch some nice day this week. One or two men will work until we get the courage to raise the monobanders.
John, W1AN
I’ve got the 5 element 6M yagi on the tower today. It needs a little azimuth adjustment but it’s working OK. I added three feet to the mast to allow 9+ feet of separation from the HF beam. For those interested in VHF propagation last weekend ol’ sol provide some great 2M aurora contacts. Longest contact was to W0VB in EN34, 1059 miles. The VHF contest approaches.
John, W1AN
Note that if you use N1MM Logger for this contest AND you were single band (either 50 or 144), the Cabrillo file header should be changed to indicate the single band per the following on the contest web page…
“BAND should be ALL, 144 or 50 only. 6M and 2M will converted to ALL by the robot”
73, Ken K3IU