CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 2006

CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 2006
category: SINGLE OPERATOR, SINGLE BAND
callsign: N2SLN / M

OPERATORS

N2SLN -- solo effort from the mobile in the driveway; paper and pen logging (and dupe checking)!

"ROVER" VEHICLE

The "rover" vehicle was the personal vehicle of N2SLN. Rover is in double quotes because I was not operating in a rover situation--I only activated one grid.

ANTENNA SYSTEM

The antenna was a base loaded 1/4 wave mobile whip antenna mounted on the trunk lip. This is the worst antenna design I've ever used on 6m. The performance is so bad that people near my QTH who are using dipoles have told me that stations on E-skip were calling me when I couldn't hear a thing. To give you an idea of how strong the band opening was during this contest, I worked 6m double-hop E-skip on this same antenna.
didn't have time to set up the pair of 6 meter Par Omniangle OA-50 loops on the 30-foot telescoping fiberglass mast (like this)
2m mobile whip with low SWR on SSB portion of the band (awaiting deployment for E-skip, but none ever materialized)

RADIO EQUIPMENT

Icom IC-706mk2G at 100 watts

DESCRIPTION

This is a VHF contest sponsored by CQ Magazine and occurs every year in July. It is less popular than the "big 3" ARRL contests in January, June, and September, so normally I use it to try new equipment or check out new rover sites rather than try to get a big score. But this time the conditions on 6m were unbelieveably good, so despite having company over for the weekend, I decided to steal away at every chance and operate when I could. This contest starts on a Saturday at 2 pm eastern time every year, and runs through 5 pm the next day (only 27 hours versus 33 hours for the big ARRL VHF contests). It is a two-band contest: 6m/2m only.

The "rover" vehicle (this time not used in a rover situation) was my personal vehicle in its usual state (without any special contesting equipment installed). I operated entirely from my driveway at 1790 feet above sea level in FN22 (central NY). My very first contact was double-hop E-skip on 6m (AF6O DM14) which also gave me a new grid, so that was an indication that this was to be an incredible time; it was also my longest-distance contact at 2317 miles (3728 km). This was only the second time ever in a contest that I've worked double-hop E-skip. The first was earlier this year in the June contest, so 2006 is turning out to be quite a year for a "bottom of the cycle" year! Now I wish I didn't have company that weekend so I could have put forth a more serious effort to take advantage of such great conditions.

My first contact was at 0040 UTC when I was first able to sneak out to the car. As the contest progressed, I noticed 6m starting to shorten up. Thirty-one minutes later I worked KF8QL in Michigan with 5x5 signals on both ends, and that's not very far from NY State (499 miles or 804 km to my location), so every few minutes I would check 2m for E-skip, but none was to be found. Forty-eight minutes later I was hearing even shorter skip to the Michigan area (K8KS/EN82 at 411 miles or 661 km, 5x7 signal here) but still no 2m E-skip. Conditions continued to be strong to the upper midwest until 0215 UTC on 6m, then suddenly there was a directional shift to the southeastern states. I began by working a station in Florida, then one from South Carolina, then Virginia, but still no 2m E-skip despite a second round of shortening paths.

I did pick up 4 new grids. I did not make any 2m contacts as originally planned, so I decided to put myself in the single-operator, single-band "high-power" category ("high power" at only 100 watts). I worked only 12.2% of the contest. I did begin assembling the 6m two-loop rover stack on Sunday, but was too busy with visitors to finish it before the end of the contest. My QSO rate was one QSO every 4 minutes and 25 seconds for 3 hrs and 18 minutes straight--not bad for a high radiation angle mobile whip and 100 watts. I worked almost 1/3 of the VUCC award in one contest--32 unique grids to be exact--all from the car. I was the only mobile station in the U.S. to submit a log (see for yourself) and was the only station in FN22 to submit a log. I worked 13 states [map] and Ontario, Canada, but no local contacts, probably a result of not going hilltopping and not using horizontally polarized antennas. I heard stations all the way up to 50.300, including USB stations on the meteor scatter frequency of 50.260 MHz. As far as frequency usage, this is the most activity I've ever seen in any 6m band opening since I got on 6m in 1997. After looking at the results from the 2002 attempt at this contest, this one turned out to be the better one. I tripled my 2002 score without making a single 2m QSO during this one. There is a writeup available here.

POINTS SUMMARY


Band   QSOs    QSO pts.    Mults.
----------------------------------------------
 50     47        47        32
144      0         0         0
----------------------------------------------
TOTALS  47        47        32


        --- Claimed score = 1,504 ---






LOG



START-OF-LOG: 2.0
CALLSIGN: N2SLN/M
CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP 6M HIGH 
CLAIMED-SCORE: 1504
CONTEST: CQ-VHF
CREATED-BY: WA7BNM Web2Cabrillo 1.07
NAME:
ADDRESS:
ADDRESS:
ADDRESS:
OPERATORS: N2SLN
SOAPBOX:
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0040 N2SLN/M          FN22   AF6O             DM14   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0041 N2SLN/M          FN22   NW5E             EL98   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0043 N2SLN/M          FN22   KB8U             EN71   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0047 N2SLN/M          FN22   W9IU             EN60   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0048 N2SLN/M          FN22   K9ZO             EN50   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0050 N2SLN/M          FN22   N2BJ             EN61   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0051 N2SLN/M          FN22   K9VS             EN52   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0104 N2SLN/M          FN22   KC9BQA           EN63   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0108 N2SLN/M          FN22   W9RAY            EN44   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0109 N2SLN/M          FN22   K9AKS            EN41   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0111 N2SLN/M          FN22   KF8QL            EN72   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0114 N2SLN/M          FN22   W9CDL            EN44   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0120 N2SLN/M          FN22   N8BJQ            EN80   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0128 N2SLN/M          FN22   N8JI             EN72   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0129 N2SLN/M          FN22   K2DRH            EN41   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0132 N2SLN/M          FN22   WZ8D             EM89   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0135 N2SLN/M          FN22   KZ4RR            EM90   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0138 N2SLN/M          FN22   N0FW             EM79   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0146 N2SLN/M          FN22   KD4VRY           EL96   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0147 N2SLN/M          FN22   N5BO             EM60   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0150 N2SLN/M          FN22   VA3TTX           EN82   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0159 N2SLN/M          FN22   K8KS             EN82   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0201 N2SLN/M          FN22   N0URW            EN41   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0204 N2SLN/M          FN22   W9MZH            EN71   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0209 N2SLN/M          FN22   KB9UMI           EN70   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0214 N2SLN/M          FN22   WB9Z             EN60   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0217 N2SLN/M          FN22   K4SN             EL96   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0219 N2SLN/M          FN22   K4QI             FM06   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0222 N2SLN/M          FN22   KI9A             EM58   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0225 N2SLN/M          FN22   K8GP             FM08   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0227 N2SLN/M          FN22   NG4C             FM16   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0229 N2SLN/M          FN22   N4XD             FM05   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0230 N2SLN/M          FN22   KN4SM            FM16   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0234 N2SLN/M          FN22   N9LF             EN60   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0240 N2SLN/M          FN22   K4EA             EM74   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0247 N2SLN/M          FN22   W3HDH            EN50   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0305 N2SLN/M          FN22   NJ2F             EL96   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0307 N2SLN/M          FN22   AF4OD/R          EM72   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0309 N2SLN/M          FN22   KY5R             EM64   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0311 N2SLN/M          FN22   W4WA             EM84   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0312 N2SLN/M          FN22   K4DLI            EM74   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 0316 N2SLN/M          FN22   KR1ST            EM92   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 1315 N2SLN/M          FN22   WB2QLP           EL96   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 1327 N2SLN/M          FN22   K4EPS            EL86   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 1329 N2SLN/M          FN22   K9QVB            EN45   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 1333 N2SLN/M          FN22   K9HUY            EL86   
QSO:    50 PH 2006-07-16 1357 N2SLN/M          FN22   AA4V             FM02   
END-OF-LOG:

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the N2SLN rover team.