CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 2026
 category: SINGLE-OP HIGH POWER
 callsign: N2SLN





ANTENNA SYSTEM

6m
Moxon
2m
6-el Rover Yagi






RADIO EQUIPMENT






DESCRIPTION

Every day leading up to the contest I checked the forecast for the hilltops I had originally planned to use as a rover, and each one showed a chance of thunderstorms. So the only remaining choice was to get permission to use the local club's hilltop and enter the contest as a single-op. Because the hilltop was only 15 minutes away and the closest one I have, the plan was to use small antennas and head home to wait for any thunderstorms to pass, then head back to the hill and set up again. The only problem is that I was running just enough power to require placing myself in the High Power category where I would certainly be clobbered by all the single-op kilowatts with hundred foot towers cemented in the ground and stacks of antennas on them. On the other hand, after operating in this contest as a rover since the early 2000's, I was making history by operating in the Single Op category for the first time.

The contest started with a mixture of local contacts and a 6m opening to the Atlantic coastline states and gulf coast states. In the second hour the EN grid field showed up, and keeping the Moxon pointed southwest seemed to take care of all of it thanks to the broad beamwidth. The band got so busy at one point that I had to move up to 50.175 to get away from the QRM. I worked my best DX of the contest, a Texas station at 1243 mi / 2000 km, and then tore down and went home for lunch at about 1745Z, then came back and set back up. When I got back on the air the SSB activity had dropped off but there were a bunch of new midwest grids available on CW with good signals so I worked what I could there, including a North Dakota station who would be on the air for only three and a half hours. I did hear Cuba and Chile on 50.110, but signals were too weak to try for them. The sky at this point was getting dark, so I rolled my window down in order to listen for thunder and that was a good call because I did hear some and tore down immediately. When I got to the first intersection on my way home, I looked north and saw inky black skies in the direction I had to travel in order to get home. The rain held off until I got close to home, and then the high winds and heavy downpours unleashed quite a fury, including an inch of accumulated rain on my front lawn at the edge of the driveway. I had to exit the vehicle through the passenger side door to avoid it. After dinner I decided not to return to the hill Saturday, knowing that there would not likely be enough benefit for such a short duration, not to mention a bad time of day for 6m to be open.

Sunday morning I went to the hill early because I wanted to work some long haul contacts on 2m during the elevated humidity, but there was no one else celebrating the enhancement despite the Packrats' 2m beacon W3CCX/B coming in 579 (normally 519) from more than 90 miles away. Others reported lack of 2m activity in their areas, too. I worked a few more local stations on both bands, then 6m had a weak opening in the last half hour and I picked up 4 more Florida stations.

The 2m filter's passband is tuned for the SSB portion of the band, and the band-reject portion of the filter was tuned for the repeater frequency in case I ever used the repeater site as my operating location like I did this weekend. That worked well, but the digipeater on 144.390 MHz at the same QTH was too close in frequency to be rejected sufficiently by the filter and it did knock out some of my received signals on 2m.








POINTS SUMMARY 



BAND   QSOs   QPts   GRIDS
--------------------------
6m     103    103     52
2m      10     20      9
--------------------------
TOTALS 113    123     61


claimed score: 7,503





LOG 


START-OF-LOG: 3.0
CONTEST: CQ-VHF-SSBCW
CALLSIGN: N2SLN
LOCATION: WNY
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-BAND: ALL
CATEGORY-POWER: HIGH
CATEGORY-MODE: SSB
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: TWO
CLAIMED-SCORE: 7503
CLUB: none
CREATED-BY: hand
NAME: 
ADDRESS: 
ADDRESS-CITY: 
ADDRESS-STATE-PROVINCE: 
ADDRESS-POSTALCODE: 
ADDRESS-COUNTRY: USA
OPERATORS: N2SLN
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1405 N2SLN   FN22    N4IS   EL96
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1407 N2SLN   FN22    N2FSU  EL96
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1407 N2SLN   FN22    K3ISH  FN21
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1409 N2SLN   FN22    KJ4E   EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1411 N2SLN   FN22    KE2DN  FN12
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-04 1412 N2SLN   FN22    KE2DN  FN12
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1414 N2SLN   FN22    KK4MA  EM93
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1416 N2SLN   FN22    N6AR   EL98
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1418 N2SLN   FN22    K1DS   EL96
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1419 N2SLN   FN22    N4SVC  EM80
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1428 N2SLN   FN22    K8MEM  EL97
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1434 N2SLN   FN22    WQ5L   EM50
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1436 N2SLN   FN22    WA4ZAZ EL88
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1436 N2SLN   FN22    K3DNE  EM93
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1438 N2SLN   FN22    N2NKX  FN22
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-04 1440 N2SLN   FN22    N1ROZ  FN32
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-04 1445 N2SLN   FN22    N2NKX  FN22
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1446 N2SLN   FN22    K2XA   FN32
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1447 N2SLN   FN22    N1ROZ  FN32
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1449 N2SLN   FN22    WW3A   EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1450 N2SLN   FN22    WA4AH  EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1451 N2SLN   FN22    WB4MM  EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1454 N2SLN   FN22    W4EEY  EM84
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1454 N2SLN   FN22    KA1AQ  EL88
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1455 N2SLN   FN22    W4MAA  EM84
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1455 N2SLN   FN22    KM4SLW EM72
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1456 N2SLN   FN22    NA4DA  EL89
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1457 N2SLN   FN22    K4ADR  EL96
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1459 N2SLN   FN22    KW4G   EL97
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1501 N2SLN   FN22    K5WBX  EM42
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1502 N2SLN   FN22    W0ZQ   EN34
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1502 N2SLN   FN22    W0ZF   EN34
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1505 N2SLN   FN22    KA9OMY EN44
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1507 N2SLN   FN22    W4ATL  EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1508 N2SLN   FN22    KM4XY  EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1509 N2SLN   FN22    NG0C   EN34
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1509 N2SLN   FN22    NE8P   EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1511 N2SLN   FN22    WA8ZYT EL89
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1516 N2SLN   FN22    WB4WXE EM73
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1517 N2SLN   FN22    KS4X   EM75
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1525 N2SLN   FN22    KK4BMV EL99
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1531 N2SLN   FN22    K1RZ   FM19
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1543 N2SLN   FN22    W4EE   EL98
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1545 N2SLN   FN22    KR1ST  FN21
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-04 1546 N2SLN   FN22    KR1ST  FN21
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1550 N2SLN   FN22    KM6DH  FM14
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1554 N2SLN   FN22    N4WLO  EM50
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1555 N2SLN   FN22    W6NCB  EM76
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1556 N2SLN   FN22    W4BCZ  EL87
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1556 N2SLN   FN22    WN2E   EM50
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1601 N2SLN   FN22    K4IDC  EM66
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1605 N2SLN   FN22    NV4B/R EM64
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1605 N2SLN   FN22    N4QS   EM56
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1606 N2SLN   FN22    W5LLX  EM25
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1608 N2SLN   FN22    K6ES   FM14
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1608 N2SLN   FN22    KR4KXG EM71
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1609 N2SLN   FN22    NN2E   EM56
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1612 N2SLN   FN22    AA9HQ  FM03
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1614 N2SLN   FN22    KE4QCM EM73
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1615 N2SLN   FN22    K3TW   EL88
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1618 N2SLN   FN22    KQ4REL EM72
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1620 N2SLN   FN22    KR4HRC EM66
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1621 N2SLN   FN22    K4WPY  EM95
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1621 N2SLN   FN22    W2BBQ  EM84
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1622 N2SLN   FN22    K0VG   EN27
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1624 N2SLN   FN22    N5KSS  EM50
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1625 N2SLN   FN22    KA2G   EM93
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1625 N2SLN   FN22    KC4VLJ EM63
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1627 N2SLN   FN22    WA4LDU EM93
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1627 N2SLN   FN22    KD4S   EM84
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1628 N2SLN   FN22    K4NCO  EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1631 N2SLN   FN22    K4GEN  EM95
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1634 N2SLN   FN22    N5AYD  EM64
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1635 N2SLN   FN22    N3XF   FN00
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-04 1636 N2SLN   FN22    N3XF   FN00
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1638 N2SLN   FN22    K5DAD  EM52
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1639 N2SLN   FN22    WB0WQS EM27
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1640 N2SLN   FN22    WA4WZQ EM95
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1641 N2SLN   FN22    NU4N   EM57
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1642 N2SLN   FN22    KG5MD  EM36
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1647 N2SLN   FN22    N8TP   EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1650 N2SLN   FN22    KY4G   EM64
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1651 N2SLN   FN22    WB3AKC EM95
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1652 N2SLN   FN22    KW4SW  EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1654 N2SLN   FN22    K5XU   EM42
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1656 N2SLN   FN22    N0IRM  EM36
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1700 N2SLN   FN22    W5TDY  EM85
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1702 N2SLN   FN22    W4JUU  EM74
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1713 N2SLN   FN22    K2DP   EM48
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1719 N2SLN   FN22    AB4B   EM64
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1721 N2SLN   FN22    WV4P   EM55
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1723 N2SLN   FN22    WB2QJ  EM85
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1724 N2SLN   FN22    AA2MA  EM64
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1726 N2SLN   FN22    KY4MRG EM77
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1726 N2SLN   FN22    KK4JW  EM77
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1731 N2SLN   FN22    KA5CJJ EM23
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-04 1915 N2SLN   FN22    K0SIX  EN35
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-04 1927 N2SLN   FN22    W0ZA   EN00
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-04 1929 N2SLN   FN22    KA0PQW EN33
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-04 1931 N2SLN   FN22    KN0V   EN34
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-04 1943 N2SLN   FN22    AI0Y   EN08
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-05 1143 N2SLN   FN22    N3RG   FM29
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-05 1147 N2SLN   FN22    N3RG   FM29
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-05 1148 N2SLN   FN22    N2NT   FN20
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-05 1150 N2SLN   FN22    N2NT   FN20
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-05 1152 N2SLN   FN22    K2TXB  FN20
QSO: 144  PH  2026-07-05 1157 N2SLN   FN22    N1NQD  FN13
QSO:  50  PH  2026-07-05 1200 N2SLN   FN22    N1NQD  FN13
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-05 1333 N2SLN   FN22    K3SV   EL88
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-05 1337 N2SLN   FN22    K1TO   EL87
QSO:  50  CW  2026-07-05 1346 N2SLN   FN22    AA4NP  EL98
QSO   50  PH  2026-07-05 1353 N2SLN   FN22    WA2ZQX EL87
END-OF-LOG: