Busy weekend. NAQP SSB and January VHF start tomorrow afternoon.

[KJ3N]

NAQP SSB starts at 1800z. January VHF starts at 1900z.

Anyone? Bueller?

[K7SGJ]

Well shit, here go the bands again. Another effin contest weekend that will ruin what radio has become. All these people wanting to actually talk to others in far away places on the radio instead of the internet. Damn. I wanted to test a new rig and now I'll be lucky to find a spot to fit into. At least on non contest weekends, I'd be able to hear some one give me a call back, if I could just find anyone, but the QRM is way lower. Maybe I need to buy me one of them $30 Chinese radios and just 10-4 on the police band.

Contests indeed. Phoooey

[NA4BH]

Don't buy the Chinese radio, you DON'T know Chinese. Nobody could understand you.

[K7SGJ]

Don't buy the Chinese radio, you DON'T know Chinese. Nobody could understand you.

你他妈的

[KJ3N]

My VHF/UHF array is mounted on the garage roof. This puts the topmost antenna (1296) about 30 feet in the air, which is 20 feet below the tree line. Needless to say, I don't expect great results, especially during the June contest on 432 and 1296 when the trees are in full bloom. I'm also handicapped by not having preamps on 432 and 1296.

With no band openings or enhancements, I did manage to do better this past weekend, compared with June. Most of the point gains were on 70cm and 23 cm.

Final score and band breakdown:

6m - 32 Qs and 8 grids <-- 2 Qs and 4 grids less than June
2m - 46 Qs and 13 grids <-- 13 Qs and 1 grid more than June
70cm - 29 Qs and 8 grids <-- 12 more Qs than June, but same number of grids
23cm - 9 Qs and 3 grids <-- 7 more Qs and 2 more grids than in June

Total - 116 Qs and 32 grids = 5,504

Furthest grid from here in FM29 was into FM16 on 2m and 70cm, at 240 miles.

My NAQP score was less than my VHF score. Guess that will happen when you only put in 4.6 hours into NAQP.

[W9JEF]

Well shit, here go the bands again. Another effin contest weekend that will ruin what radio has become. All these people wanting to actually talk to others in far away places on the radio instead of the internet. Damn. I wanted to test a new rig and now I'll be lucky to find a spot to fit into. At least on non contest weekends, I'd be able to hear some one give me a call back, if I could just find anyone, but the QRM is way lower. Maybe I need to buy me one of them $30 Chinese radios and just 10-4 on the police band.

Contests indeed. Phoooey

That's just one advantage of CW...

you only need a couple hundred Hz of bandwidth. :)

Me, the only contests I get into are the ones on 160,

when that normally "dead" bend really comes alive.

What better test of your new rig (and your antenna)

than seeing how well you fit in, than a 'test? ;)

[NQ6U]

Contests are da ebil. They will be the death of ham radio.

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/001/d/2/bert_the_turtle_was_very_alert_by_Aedelthryd.png

[W9JEF]

.


. . . I usually head for 30 meters on weekends.

For those who prefer phone, there are the other WARC (contest free) bands. :)