I was pretty excited to enter the ARRL VHF Contest this past weekend. I’d heard that we shouldn’t expect much if any sporadic E openings. That proved true. Six meters was not the band to be on at least here in North Texas.
I managed to work eight contacts and four grids. There weren’t even many locals on to add to the totals. Late in the contest I heard a couple of guys chatting and asked them for their grid squares. Otherwise, I’d have six contacts.
My highlight was a meteor scatter contact with K0TPP for a new grid. Since we’re not allowed to spot ourselves or use Ping Jockey during the contest to set up contacts, I monitored it and found that K0TPP was calling CQ and pointed in nearly my direction. I answered and we made the QSO. FSK441 is such a neat mode. One ping and you’ve got communication. Pretty cool.
For the next VHF contest the rules have been changed to allow self-spotting and using all available means to set up schedules. That will make meteor scatter and EME much bigger factors. We’ll see what happens.
If I worked you during the contests, thanks so much for the Q.
