June 2017 was one of the finest June VHF contests we had ever seen. We worked 40 states on 6m, added 9 unique grids on 2m even after 7 years of contesting with this callsign, worked a new record 44 grids on 222, and smashed our old DX record on 432 by working Missouri for a new state. It was going to be difficult to top those kinds of results in 2018, but if you've ever operated at K2LIM, you'd know we were going to have lots of fun trying. It's not often that you get sporadic-E on 6m and tropo on the upper bands in the same contest, but that's what happened in 2017. However, there were still a few ways we could beat the previous June.

In the days leading up to the contest, Ken, Al, and Warren went to the hill to begin preparations for June. They converted the long Yagis into H-frame configurations on 2m, 222, and 432. Then they put charged batteries back in the diesel generator and it started right up. In addition, they installed the microwave gear and raised the microwave tower. Additional antenna work included repairing the 6m LVA, lower 6m omni stack, and one of the 432 towers and rotor. Most exciting of all was getting on 2m to make some noise on the 205 Morning Group. Al tested the four H-frame stacked 12-el Yagis for the first time since the modifications. Signals were strong from stations 300-400 miles away and mobile stations that were at the noise floor on the upper omni stack came up to S7 on the 4x12s. Ken finished up by adding 2 networked computers for a total of 9 in case spares are needed in the heat of battle.

As contest time approached, the wx forecast continued to improve to the point where rain was no longer being mentioned for Saturday, but a system would be passing through PA and south central NY that day. It didn't make it far enough north to produce any rain for us, but both days turned out to be much cloudier and cooler than predicted. We were donning long sleeve shirts and light jackets.

For our final running of the June VHF Contest, we had the biggest crew ever assembled at K2LIM: Ken KA2LIM, Al W9KXI, Rob KB2YCC, Gregg NX2W, Ray N3RG, Warren WB2ONA, Larry WA3CSP, Quincy KK5QS, Walt N2IK, and your author, Lu N2SLN. We missed our chef Dave N2LID who was unable to join us, but he gave us contacts.

Saturday started out average with occasional quick-burst openings to Florida on 6m, and no tropo on the upper bands. When there was no skywave, many troposcatter stations would disappear in the middle of the contact; some tried again later but most did not. Some contesters in the midwest reported that they were seeing the same thing (which we have seen here before). Then later in the day 6m got better.

Quincy, visiting from Oklahoma, got a turn in the 6m chair and did a terrific job handling what was probably our biggest pileup of the day. There was no evening enhancement on the upper bands, and the score was still below 100k, but we did work Cuba on 6m. As the late hours arrived, operators started going to bed for the night. The 2m QSO count was way ahead of 6m all day, but Ray, N3RG, brought his laptops and began working FT8 on 6m and 2m, reeling in more QSOs for us before switching to 6m meteor scatter and getting a bunch more.

For our 2m moon-bounce attempt, we were going to start on the LVA-6 which probably has the best combination of low takeoff angle, gain, and wide azimuth beamwidth for the first few minutes of moon time, then switch to the 4x12s for the remainder. At 4 AM Lu, not a coffee drinker, could not stay up any longer and was forced to miss the EME attempt. At that time Ray had quite a lineup of folks looking to work us off the moon. He ended up working 4 Russian stations and a Netherlands station, a terrific result for antennas with no elevation.

Sunday morning started with average conditions, and we were noticing that so far the number of QSOs was down on 222/432 compared to recent contests where we had been generating 3-digit QSO counts--mostly due to better tropo, but when 6m opens, the upper bands always suffer. We hit 200k at lunchtime Sunday as Walt was preparing beer brats with pepper and onions all cooked in beer. We put videos of the antennas and Grid Square Limo on Facebook and by Sunday we already had comments from more than 4,300 people. Then 6m opened again and, as usual, the upper bands became an afterthought for all the single-ops. At first the 6m opening would get weak for a few minutes and then come back strong, but then eventually it just stayed solid for hours. Some of us tried the narrowest beam-width antenna in an attempt to reduce the QRM. It may have helped short-term, but after a while it didn't seem to matter, and neither did aiming the beams anywhere in particular. We were awfully happy to see that 6m SSB is not dead yet! Our 6m QSO count finally surpassed 2m.

We hit 300k late Sunday afternoon, and by late evening we broke 400k for the first time since 2012. Now it was down to a final push for the finish line to see if we were going to beat 2012's numbers. Our six meter operators were entering the boxing ring, getting beat up, running for cover, and being replaced one after another, and finally the spectacular band opening lost intensity so we could come back to our senses.

The high variety of grids available in this opening helped us to produce our highest claimed 6m grid total (181 grids) since the great European opening of June 2012 (226 grids) near the peak of Cycle 24. This, combined with the microwave contacts which we did not do in June 2012, and the unique grids on the digital modes which we have not done recently, generated our all-time highest June claimed score of 477,480 points. After more than a decade of amazing June VHF contesting fun, this was the right way to go out!

June 2007  66,550
     2008  98,334
     2009 218,892
     2010 325,238
     2011 298,100
     2012 409,360
     2013 165,725
     2014 294,756
     2015 231,420
     2016 352,660
     2017 339,212
     2018 477,480