W4NH - The Fourlanders VHF Contesting Group

June 2011 VHF QSO Party

Bob W4ZST, Fourlanders President

Some material blatantly stolen from the W4ATL blog. Thanks Sherman and maybe you should write the contest reports for me!

W4NH operated from Mile High Campground in NC, EM85jm, for the June VHF contest. We had a great time as usual and came home a few pounds heavier from all the food available along with a record score for the group operating from Mile High. Thanks to the band captains, Jim W4KXY on 6m, Scott NN4W bringing the 2m station, Brian NX9O on 222 as usual and Ron WW8RR with the 432 gear. We did limited multi as usual and also had the following operators: Jim, Sherman W4ATL, Kim WG8S, Paul W4SKI and Bob W4ZST mostly operating 6m. Scott, Tom K4TJD and Kos N4NIA mostly operating on 2m. Brian along with new op Jason KF5DSP and Bill KI4US holding down most of the duty on 222 and Ron and Jim WE8W with most of the 432 operating. Operators switched in and out and were supplemented by Ivan K4VJM, Skip K5AWC, Chris, W5ONT, Dean K2JB, John KW2N and Brian's (10 year old) daughter Claire also got on the air some.

We had a good number of visitors and others camping with us, but I didn't take all the names this time and failed to have a sign-in sheet. I do know we were visited by Philip N4HF and some Ham/motorcycle friends with some impressive motorcycle mobile set-ups on Sunday. Paul's GF Elke and her son, friend Garrett and Dean's wife and another friend Howard whose call I missed, also ate and camped with the group. Jason (12 years old) KF5DSP is Skip's grandson and he picked up on the contesting bit quite quickly. He really seemed to enjoy operating on 222 and Brian may have to worry about competition for the band captain position. We sure hope he will get to be a regular with us and also bring 10 year old brother Robert KF5IRC sometime too, but it is a long trip from Houston TX for them.

The unofficial results are as follows.

Band	Q's	Grids
6m	841	271
2m	117	41
222	35	25
432	60	27

This is a record for the group in June at Mile High and almost made it to the section record. As usual the excellent openings on 6m kept the single op stations on 6 and cut into the possible totals for the higher bands. Some of the distant 6m grids were CN79, CO90, EO10 FN85 FK49, FK94, DL94 and EK71.

This year we had more rain than usual. It rained every afternoon we were there which delayed our setup on Friday by a few hours. Fortunately the setup gets easier every year so we were fully functional on all bands by Saturday morning. We did have some problems with rain static on 6m, especially on the beams, but used the omni's to good advantage. Also had a 2m amp problem, but was replaced with the spare amp and went on without incident. The 2m amp was repaired on site by Ron and is back in operation. One highlight for the 2m station was our first EME contact on 2m was made early Sunday morning by NN4W and he's not down off the high yet. It was done with WSJT and was a random contact. Even more impressive. Several WSJT contacts were made in the wee hours on 6m also.

Contest Food report: Where would the 'Never Hungry' group be without the fine food that Jeff provided along with some very fine assistance from Dean K2JB and Howard. Jeff had Meat Loaf, baked potatoes and Salad for us on Friday night, Scrambled eggs with Ham, green peppers and onions, and hashbrowns for Breakfast on Saturday, Brats, buns and potato salad for lunch. Saturday evenings meal was prepared by Dean, assisted by Howard, and was his famous 'Dutch Oven' delights: Chili, cornbread and Cherry Cobbler all cooked in the dutch ovens. It was excellent. Dean even revealed that the secret to his chili was just any standard recipe, but with the addition of a can of Rotel tomatoes, Black beans along with the red chili beans and some ground Italian sausage. Chris W5ONT had brought a lot of extra food, but we weren't in any condition to even taste it (but don't worry, it went down just fine at Field Day!) Jeff continued on with Pancakes and Sausage for Sunday morning, sloppy joes, chips and cole slaw for lunch, spaghetti and meatballs and salad for supper and finally French Toast and Bacon for our Monday morning breakfst. Food cost for those staying for all 8 meals was just $32. Thanks again to Jeff and Dean for a great weekend of good food.

Cost for the full timers for camping spaces and Generator fuel were only $26 and pro-rated for those there only part of the time. That's a lot of food and fun for a weekend for only $58. Anyone would have spent a lot more just staying home and getting into their usual trouble!

From Sherman's blog:

We had a visit from some Elk that live in the area. They are used to humans since they just walked right into the camp and checked out the 6M tower trailer. I decided they had worn out their welcome when one started snooping in the 6M equipment containers. I went down to retrieve the containers to keep them from tearing up the contents or the container.

Sherman also had listed some other duties of the group that I had not been including in my usual reports:

Rules Interpretation: KI4US

Chef: W0ONR

Sous-chef: K2JB

Sage: K4VJM

Human Wikipedia: K5AWC

Sherman has posted some pictures of the contest on his website. You can check them out at www.shermanbanks.net

Thanks to all who participated, my apologies to anyone I failed to mention (maybe I should take notes while I'm there. Ya think?) and the next report will be of the Fourlanders Field Day experience two weeks later. We will also do the CQ WW VHF contest from the W4ZST QTH in July on the 16th and 17th. This is a 6m and 2m only contest. Our annual meeting to elect officers and such will take place Saturday morning the 16th before the contest. One nice thing about contesting at my house is that I tend not to leave much behind, not like the 15 things I forgot to bring to the mountain.

73, Bob W4ZST, Fourlanders President

June 27, 2011