June VHF Contest - 2003
KI5DR/r South Texas
This year the June VHF contest did not happen the same time as Dallas Hamcom, so I did
not have to start out in Dallas (as I did in previous times.) I elected to begin my
adventure out West - DL98, which is mostly in Mexico.
I have added a map of my route. Blue was Saturday,
Yellow was Sunday.
I took off Saturday morning, and after a short breakfast with the Denny's Hambuds, it was on the road to
Southwest Texas. But first, a short stop by Tom, K5VH's
location in Dripping Springs, TX. Tom offered to loan me a "White Box"
microwave transceiver for 10Ghz. More on this later.
Due to a last minute problem with the rack, and the stop at K5VH, I was around an hour
behind schedule, and did not arrive down in DL98 until 2pm or so
Central time. I was able to grab a couple of stations on 2m and 432, but NOTHING
on 6m at all. I pulled out after 40 minutes, and headed North back through EL08 (never
heard anyone) and EL09 (San Antonio area) towards DL99. I hung a left off of Hwy 83,
and again found some activity on the bands as I wound my way through
the back roads of Texas. From most of this area, there is just NO WAY to get
signals out of the canyons unless I could get over these hills.
Problem is, there are NO ROADS. And if there were, they were likely privately
held and behind locked gates. I did follow one path looking for
a way to get up HERE, but I would have had to cross the river -
again, no roads.
After working my way North, I found a road Eastward, and
finally crested the hilltops. Now the problem is there are no places to pull off and
park. I finally found some guy's driveway, and figured that nobody would come by for a spell. Then I started down the other side.
After working from DL99 and EM00 at various rest stops, I
made my way North to Junction Texas, for a quick dinner at McD's. Now - interesting
thing - the bands were dead when I went inside, but when I came out 6m had EXPLODED.
I boogied down I-10 west until I found a U-turn and a spot
to park in DM90, and set up shop. After an hour or
two of good runs on 6m, the bands were beginning to give out, and I
needed to get rolling from my perch, arriving at home by midnight.
Sunday morning I headed out and set up camp at the Scenic overlook on Hwy 71 near
LaGrange, TX. From here I set up the Whitebox and 2ft satellite dish, and made my
first ever Microwave contact with K5VH on 10Ghz with 1watt! It took around 30
minutes to get peaked up and find each other with the drifting radios, but we were able to
connect and Bag the QSO! The really unfortunate thing is I inadvertently lost the photos I
took from the digital camera, so I have no pictures from my Sunday drive.
After making a bunch of contacts from El19, I made my way down Hwy 71 to I-10 East, and
headed towards Houston (EL29). I took a couple of hours and hooked up with the
family for Father's Day, then back to the van and EM20. After that, it was a slow
drive back up Hwy 290 to Austin and EM10. 6m never opened up like it did on Saturday
afternoon, but I did work several out-of-state stations who peaked in from time-to-time.
AA7A really had a nice signal towards the end of the contest. I arrived home
15 minutes after the end of the contest, and proceeded to pull everything off the roof.
This time, no major incidents! Everything stayed together, nothing broke, and
pretty much worked as planned. My only glitch turned out to be some RF-feedback
getting into the Icom when I used the Amp in conjunction with my Cushcraft 4el yagi.
If I used my new 7el yagi it worked fine.
How'd I do?
Summary:
Total: 206 94 Total Score = 23,896
Activated 9 grids:
DL98, DL99, DM90, EM00, EL09, EM10, EL19, EL29, EM20, covered over 1,000 miles.
The set up this time:
Icom 706MkIIg - 100w 6m, 50w 2m, 20w 432Mhz. Mirage B-310G amp for 2m (100w).
ADI 247 30w FM radio for 222.
Yaesu FT-2600M for 2m FM work.
Antennas:
6m - 2 element X-beam (from the Internet)
2m - 4el cushcraft (had it forever) on a rotor, plus new 7element WA5VJB design built from
scratch (worked GREAT!)
222 - 6 Element WA5VJB Yagi, horizontally polarized FM
432 - 17 element unknown-brand yagi donated by K5TR (so I would be louder on 432!)
Miscellaneous coax switches for the different antennas, 12v/120vAC power inverter for
rotor, pad of paper for HIGH-Tech logging.
A quick word about the rack. In 2001 I did this using a rack built from 2x4 wood.
It was stable, but heavy. Last year I built this rack from 1.5" PVC, and although it fell apart on me once, I've since re-glued most
of the joints, and had no problems this weekend. With most of the antennas homebrew
(except the old Cushcraft and the UHF beam) the whole thing is REALLY light. I can
grab the rack with all of the antennas attached, and lift it up over my head onto the
roof. I could not do this with the wooden rack. If you are thinking of building this
style of rack, I would recommend it...but one word of advice - USE THE PURPLE STUFF!
Until Next Time, 73!
KI5DR /r
