From what I could see, the East Coast and Midwest saw a great deal of six-meter action during the 2024 June VHF Contest. From here in North Texas, I was able to keep my antennas pointed northeast much of the time. In fact, I worked six-meter VUCC over the weekend, with 105 grids in my logbook.

Overall Results

Here are my overall results. All are digital QSOs, mostly FT8, but some FT4.

• 6 meters, 237 QSOs, 105 grids
• 2 meters, 54 QSOs, 22 grids
• Totals, 291/127
• Score 36,703

I know there are between 7 and 10 dupes. Plus, we’ll see how the log-checking impacts my score. Note that in last year’s June contest, I hit 144,000 points with contacts worked around the country, including 224 grids on six.

Saturday — Painfully Low Activity

Sitting in the chair from the 1 PM opening until 11 PM quiet time, I managed to work 73 six-meter QSOs and 32 two-meter QSOs. That was thanks to a number of rovers in the area. The conditions seemed more like a January or September contest. There was a small opening in the late evening into Ontario that helped somewhat.

Sunday — Magic Openings East

I got up and into the shack just before 7 AM to find the JT-Alert sounding off about new grids. I got in the chair and started working stations. Then, it got so chaotic for my operating skills that I just started calling CQ to simplify the effort. By about 1 PM, I was so tired I laid down to rest a bit. When I got up at around 2 PM, the band was silent. Fortunately, it picked up a smidgen later in the day but went almost completely silent in the last two or so hours.

Rovers Make the Difference — Thank You

The nearby rovers made a big difference. KA5D/R was the first in the log and added a new grid for me, EL08, on two meters. There was also W5TN/R in that group. Plus, W5OC/R added eleven QSOs. I also found N5ZY/R for a QSO. They helped my two-meter score the most.

Station Setup — No Real Changes from January

I ran the same basic station I’ve had in place for a while. The IC-7100 and M2 amplifier ran on 6 with an Airspy SDR and Antennas-Amplifiers LNA. The IC-9100 and Tokyo Hy-Power amp ran on 2. The antennas were on the push-up mast with 5-element Directive Systems 6-meter Yagi and 9-element M2 2-meter Yagi. I tried the 6-meter Omniangle at one point but must have run too much power into it as the amp shut down. Testing with an analyzer shows it’s OK. But needs some further investigation.

That brings to mind the quote of the contest for me. It comes from James, K7KQA, who, in lamenting an amplifier giving up the smoke, said, “Rest in Pieces.”

Send in Your Logs — Add Your Soapbox Story

You may have caught that I’m writing the June VHF contest full results article for the ARRL. My first effort was for the 2023 write-up. This one will be challenging. Fortunately, the logs can be uploaded despite the ARRL IT challenges. However, I see no way, other than including it in your Cabrillo log, to submit a soapbox story. So please make an effort to write something there. I will also look at 3830scores for more.

But the real missing piece will be photos, as there is currently no way to upload them to ARRL. You’re welcome to send them to me or the ARRL via email. I have also started grabbing some photos and stories from the various email lists and chat pages.

Logging Contacts and FT8

I regret that there will undoubtedly be a few not-in-log issues on my side. I sent RRR on every exchange, save for FT4 where I couldn’t change from RR73. If I didn’t get a 73 after sending RRR 3 or 4 times, I did not log the contact. That’s one of the challenges with a digital system that automatically logs contacts after sending RR73.

Thanks, everyone, for the contacts. Until the next contest. 73.

Full Contest Results

The full contest results article has been published at https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2024/Jun-VHF-2024-FinalFullResults.pdf 

There are some good graphs and analysis included along with the full listing of all the winners. It was a fun project to write the article for the ARRL.

My own result was 28th, with 2nd in North Texas, 3rd in the West Gulf Division in the Single Operator High Power category. Here’s the certificate!