Last minute reminder. There have been some excellent 6 meter openings to Europe already this month, including this morning. It may be mostly an FT8 affair, or it may not. Last year’s CQ VHF contest in July had a good mix of modes.
There is a new 2.2.0 release of WSJT-x with amazing decoding ability. I’ve had over 30 decodes on 6m from Europe in a single cycle, and I have only a mini antenna.
Look for FT4 on 50.318 for faster action when there are strong signals.
I don’t have any other bands so I can’t comment on how to operate there!
Local: 2pm Sat. to 11pm Sun.
Modes: anything legal
Exchange: 4 char. grid square (FN31 or FN41 for most of us)
Scoring: Work once per band. 1 pt 6 & 2 , More points for higher frequencies
Mults: Grids per band
WB2VVV ARRL June VHF Contest Log submitted to credit CTRI Contest Group.
Band- QSOs / Grids
50 – 257 / 89
144- 25 / 10
222 – 11 / 7
432 – 12 / 8
903- 2 / 2
1296- 5 / 2
total- 312 / 118
score- 41,182
modes- SSB/CW only (no digital or FM)
Comments: Good 50 MHz sporadic E skip openings both days to the mid-west, upper mid-west, south-east, and occasional double hop to Western states. Activity level seemed low because many operators were sitting staring at slow semi-automatic FT8 computer screens on 50.313 MHz instead of getting on and just working stations while the band was open well enough to support SSB/CW. I roused several ops by contacting them on the VHF chat page to get off FT8 and get on the air to work me on SSB/CW. The vast time invested in digital operation on 50.313 when the band was not open well enough to support 50 MHz SSB/CW really hurt the activity on 144 MHz and higher bands which generally see much higher activity when 50 MHz isn’t open. Multi-Op Station activity was expectedly low due to pandemic concerns, but many Rovers were out and about. There was no tropo enhancement early Sunday morning (I wish I slept in), and the microwave band conditions were marginal.
I personally think there should be separate categories for those stations using digital modes and those using traditional communication modes. Right now to attain a competitive score some ops feel forced to operate slow boring digital modes to up their grid count, and that hurts the more personal SSB/CW contact/sociability between operators. VHF contests were always a place to stop by and say hi to longtime friends and wish them well, and soon it will mostly become semi-automatic computer to computer communication without personal interaction.
Forgot to mention I was Single Op Low Power category.
It was nice to get the time in on this one. The 6M openings missing in previous contest was surely welcome. But the only DX was YV. Several double hops to DN and DM late Sunday was a surprise. No FT4 or FT8 here yet. Six SSB and CW kept most ops busy and neglecting the upper bands.
I still operate VHF from the 8’X12′ “shack in the back”. After chasing out the mice, squirrels and braiding up the cobwebs all seemed well. Only hangup was operator error. On 432 I thought I had lost the receive. But just forgot to power the preamp until halfway through the contest.
Good to hear old friends! CTRIers KA1VMG, KS1J, W1XX, WB2VVV, W1HI were amongst the crew members worked.
73, John W1AN
K1SX
SOLP, 6m only
113×66 = 7458
Genesis G11, 50 w homebrew sspa, 3el LFA at 20 ft
I am a fair weather vhf contester, and I don;t really want to sit on FT8 to eke out local qso;s, especially with a hand rotated yagi, but in the odd moments I could get on in this one, it always had some opening to offer. So for less time than usual I had by far my best ever in this event. I don’t even have the higher bands, but I want to second all VVV’s comments about FT8 keeping everyone absorbed when conditions are excellent for CW or FT4! I know not everybody on VHF has CW skills, anyway I was happy with the many cw q’s I was able to get, including a couple D grids. Almost everyone I called on cw heard me, even weak stations. No dx, bcz I was too distracted to turn the antenna to VP9 Sat. afternoon. 🙂 But that was FT8, so loud I wd think they could have run 150/hr on CW easily. FT8 did give me CM95, an “impossible” qso that seemed to be one of those personal spotlight openings. Heard John AN and XX but didn;t want to interrupt when the skip was in. Keep an eye on 6 the next couple weeks, conditions have been pretty surprisng so far this season.–73, Dave