* = PNWVHFS Member operating outside the Society
region. Not eligible for PNWVHFS Awards.
** = Log received late, not eligible for PNWVHFS Awards.
Band Codes: A - 50 MHz, B - 144 MHz, C - 222 MHz, D - 432 MHz, E - 902
MHz, F - 1.2 GHz, G - 2.3 GHz, H - 3.4 GHz, I - 5.7 GHz, J - 10 GHz
K - 24 GHz, L - 300+ GHz
PNWVHFS Award Winners
Certificates at the PNWVHFS Conference in October 2019
High Power: VE7DAY-BC,K7YDL-OR, KE7SW-WWA
Single-Op High Power 50 MHz: K7CW-WWA
Single-Op Low Power: VE7HR-BC, AF7MD-OR, W7GLF-EWA, N7KSI-WWA
Single-Op 3-Band: K7SMA-OR, N7QOZ-WWA
Single-Op Portable: K7ATN-OR
Single-Op FM Only: KI7LTT-OR
Limited Rover: K7BDB/R-OR, WE7X/R-WWA
Rover: KE7MSU/R-OR
Unlimited Rover: VE7AFZ/R-BC
Additional Information
K5QE Limited Multi-Op Operators:
K5QE, N5YA, N1XS, N6DX, AF8Z, N5KDA, W5KDA, KI5YG, K1USA, N6KW, WB0O, KN5O
PNW GRIDS WORKED: CN85 CN86 CN87 CN88 DN13 DN32 DN43
Saturday was awful! The only bright spot was 2M EME. We
worked a lot of EU stations on 2M. Sunday saw more good 2M EME.
We finished with over 100 grids on 2M. Sunday was slow, but we finally
got a good run of JA's in the late afternoon on 6M FT8. We also had a
few hours of good Es on 6M after the JA run shut down. Without the 6M
Es run, our score would have been pretty bad.
AL1VE/R Limited Rover: 4 GRIDS ACTIVATED: DM78 DM88 DM89 DM99
9 PNW GRIDS WORKED: CN73 CN82 CN84 CN85 CN86 CN87 CN88 CN94 DN14
Although my contacts can't count for the club score I'll send it in. All
totaled, for the entire rove trip, (leaving and returning to
Poulsbo), I drove about 3400 miles in five days. Unfortunately, on
Saturday I thought I had picked a safe area in western Kansas to operate
in. It soon became a contest in itself trying to miss the severe
thunderstorms. They won that evening as I had to sit out a storm in a
road drainage ditch! Sunday in western Colorado was a far better attempt
with 50 Mhz open at some point throughout the day to most directions.
Best of all the insane QRN level of the day before was no where to be
heard! With all the rovers in Nevada, I opted for KS and CO. Part of the
trip was to compare my newly built 3 element LFA to my old "TV aerial" 3
element yagi. Unfortunately, severe weather that wasn't in the forecast,
when I left for my rove, made an unexpected appearance. On Saturday,
spotty band conditions and lightning QRN, from nearby thunderstorms,
made most communications including digital, almost impossible. Neither
antenna helped, but with the gusty conditions I had to keep the beefier
LFA at about 15' while I could get the lighter "regular" yagi to
20 ft. Throughout the day I switched back and forth between antennas
which produced no noticeable advantage to stations I could work. Never
got to compare the rain detuning effect as the nearby storms were now
supercells and I decided to take everything off the mast to travel to my
next grid corner. It was dark as I began to head to CO and there was no
doubt I was in for a serious storm encounter. A local radio station was
reporting several confirm tornado sightings, ping ball sized hail, 60
mph lateral winds and a county-wide "take shelter immediately" alert.
All those "rover hints" I've ever read had never mentioned what to do if
you have a severe thunderstorm bearing down on you. With 60 mph winds
making driving impossible, I drove into a road-side depression on the
leeward side of a stream gully. Luckily, no hail, no torrential rains,
just lightning and lots of wind. The Escape was jostled around, the
stored antennas, mast, and roof rack screamed, but the SUV stayed
upright. After the storm passed, I slowly made it 12 miles over slick
mud to the nearest black-top road. The next day in CO went so much
better, but with still gusty winds I stuck with the regular yagi which I
was able to get up to 25'. Final thoughts on the LFA. For roving, the
improvement over a regular yagi wasn't there. BTW going down the highway
mounted at a foot above the Escape the loop portion didn't oscillate at
highway speeds, but did get distorted. I was using 1/2 for the loop
elements and 3/8 for the loop ends. While it easily tuned with a low
swr, I wondered if the mast mounted through the loop distorted the
radiation pattern? BTW, Rovers, you need to add these to the
list of other things you need to do on a rove! Know the names of all the
small townships nearby so the weather bulletins can alert you to which
direction NOT to go.
Know local radio station frequency, just in case you can't get cell
phone weather alerts
Tornadoes at night are almost impossible to see or hear. If they're
nearby, hunker down. (turns out there was at least four confirmed
small tornadoes in the county that evening).
That old adage about thunderstorms moving northeasterly is Not True.
The one that caught me came from the northwest.
And one last thought. I know several others have mentioned this, but
If you're receiving lots of FT8 signals from stations at least 300
miles away with extremely strong signals, you know the solid red
blotches with signals in the +10 to +20 range, maybe it's time to try
the microphone!
KX7L Single-Op Low Power CN87:
Pretty calm contest here until the last 3 hours or so. 6m was pretty
dominated by FT8 this year, 63 QSO's in that mode, and only 6 on
SSB. Lots of fun, thanks for all the contacts!
W7TZ Limited Multi-Op CN83:
Operators W7TZ K7NG.
We had a less than enjoyable time. Murphy tagged along in fine fashion.
Two of three generators failed; the GPS dongle failed and set all
the pc clocks to 1963; the 6m yagi mast failed and broke 3 of 5
elements; the IC-9100 USB interface failed and left us with only 6m
for digital; cell service faded away, etc........ and our scores
reflected it.
K7BWH Single-Op High Power CN87:
Sometimes you go into the forest and cut
down trees. Sometimes you stay home and sharpen the axe. My contest
activity this year was to sharpen my FT8 tools and try out more
software. The best part was to log directly from WSJT-X to N1MM
logger. Fun, productive contest from home with 3-element yagi and 100
watts.
K7YO Single-Op Low Power CN85:
This was a fun contest.
VE7DAY Single-Op High Power CO70:
Another enjoyable contest.
KI7LTT Single-Op FM CN85:
I had a great time this year, thanks for all the
contacts! I did way better than in the past due to the combination of
a new radio and finding the LED fixture that was generating HUGE
amounts of QRN. I could hear so many more people than I did in January
and September. Also I made my first ever contact on 6M (K7VIT) in this
contest.
N6ZE Single-Op 3 Band 50 DM04:
Fought head cold all weekend: operated from home QTH on 6 meters only: i.e.:
SO 1 Band. Only made 10 QSOs on SSB, 33 QSOs on FT8. Still learning
about FT8 use on 6M: heard lost of Midwest & East Coast 2x Es
during last couple of hours of the contest but only was able to work a
couple!?, but was nice to hear bunches of familiar East Coast
callsigns from my past! Rig: IC756Pro2 (50w on FT8), 5 el M2 only 15
feet above ground level.
K7SMA Single-Op 3 Band DN13:
Not too shabby for a Saturn 6 Halo @ 15' and a vertical @ 10'.
N6KW went to K5QE Limited Multi-Op EM31 for this contest:
Marshall is a wonderful host and has a great setup. So far, it looks like we
won Limited Multi-Op. I mainly did EME and MS on 2M with a bit of
terrestrial 222 and 432 thrown in for variety. We ended up with 109
grids on 2M. In the last hours of the contest we worked a bunch of the
local rovers before they went home. The 432 EME amp failed early on so
we couldn't do anything there. As Marshall said, it wasn't looking
good on Saturday, but we picked up a lot of mults overnight with EME
and MS, then had a great 6M opening in the last few hours of the
contest on Sunday. Worked a lot of PNW stations and Japan. From the
scores posted on 3830 it looks like conditions weren't that great
anywhere. Echoing AL1VE's comments, if you're working FT8 and signals
are strong, you can make a much better rate on SSB or CW...FT8 takes
about a minute for a QSO...you can make SSB or CW Q's at 2 or 3 a
minute if conditions allow. Some pictures of Marshall's setup.
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