JUNE VHF CONTEST 2026
W2RME multi-unlimited





The weak signal tower replacement project was under construction as of June 2026 at the local club shack, so we used the N2SLN contest van as the 6m/2m/432 station operated by Lu, N2SLN, and the club shack with some antennas attached to it as the 222/902/1296 station operated by Jon, W2BDN. For several days in advance, the wx forecast showed dry conditions until 2 PM local time Sunday, at which time the chance of rain jumped from 0 to 80 percent. So we expected not to be able to operate for the full contest period, and we knew we might like to have a quicker disassembly system on Sunday for the contest van. For our Saturday antennas on the bottom 2 bands, we opted for a 5-el 6m Yagi on the rear mast, and a 2m 4-stack omni on the front mast. For Sunday we switched to a 6m Moxon and a 2m 6-el Yagi plus a 432 directional antenna all on the rear mast. The 432 antenna went from a single on Saturday to a double 15-el K1FO on Sunday since there was weight freed up by removing the big 6m Yagi.

Saturday started off alright, but we noticed again this year that multi-op stations were struggling with skill and staffing. Folks were not turning antennas in every direction and calling CQ, others were not doing a good job passing stations to other bands or not showing up to the next band as requested. But at least 6m did open right away. In fact, we worked our best DX as our first skywave contact which was Texas station N5AU EM22 at 1290 miles / 2075 km. Some of the other states worked were Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, and Alabama. The shortest hop was Ohio station K9NW EM79 (519 mi / 836 km). Our QTH is rural central NY in FN22.

On Sunday the 6m skywave contacts came in slightly stronger, but still not strong enough to generate any pileups. In addition, there was too much wind to allow any enhancement on the upper bands, although the wind was appreciated later when we needed life to be difficult for the horseflies and deerflies while tearing down the antennas. In the late morning 6m opened down the east coast while staying open to the southwest and west, but activity was so sparsely populated (we are SSB/CW only) that it was easy to break away and run higher bands with local stations. Nonetheless, we did add North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, as well as Mississippi and Missouri. Our last skywave contact was our only rover contact (NV4B/R EM46).

Our best DX on 2m was eastern New Hampshire station WA1T FN43 at 235 mi / 378 km which happened Sunday morning. Honorable mention goes to WB2VVV FN41 who gave us our only Rhode Island contact. Best DX on 222 was 184 mi / 296 km to an eastern Massachusetts station in grid square FN42. The propagation on 432 was the most terrible I've ever seen and there weren't any noteworthy contacts there. We had a similar experience in June 2017 at K2LIM multi-op. In that contest, once Saturday's problematic wx system moved out of the area everything was back to normal Sunday, but that did not happen this time. Even stacking a second 15-el K1FO on Sunday didn't help. There were no contacts made on 902 or 1296. We were running 6m 150w, 2m 150w, 222 130w into an 8-el Yagi, 432 95w, 902 25w into a 17-el Yagi, and 1296 25w into a 22-el Yagi. Ordinarily we would have continued to operate, but we began shutting down in the 1300 hour local time after seeing rain and thunderstorms on the RADAR loop hitting one county to the west. We ended up getting 1.5 inches of rain Sunday evening as that cold front moved through the area.







POINTS SUMMARY 


BAND   QSOs   QSO Pts   GRIDS
------------------------------
50      55      55       42
144     10      10        8
222      3       6        3
432      3       6        3
902      0       0        0
1296     0       0        0
------------------------------
TOTALS  71      77       56


claimed score: 4,312