2024 ARRL September VHF

The only notable change to the rover since the last outing is my 6m amplifier is back from service and reinstalled. With that, I’m back to full power for the Limited Rover class on all four bands.

On to the contest. I went with the same basic route I’ve ran for Sept the last couple years. Saturday at the EM49/EM59/EN40/EN50 corner and Sunday from Taum Sauk Mountain in EM47. From there depending on how the contest was going maybe add a grid or two on the way home Sunday afternoon/evening. That ended up being a stop in EM48 on the way home for a few more Qs in the early evening.

As far as the contest itself, well, that was boring. After getting setup in EM59 a little over an hour prior to the start, there were LUs on 6m so thought maybe we would get lucky. An hour later what little bit of propagation there was was apparently all used up. The bands the rest of the weekend, at least during the times I was operating, were mostly flat. The contest started off with many of the usual suspects in the local area to work and at least a few others. By early evening the only thing that seemed to be left were the diehards. With little left to work, I was on the way back south by around 2100 local and decided to stop by the house on the way by for the night.

Without any expectation of great bands on Sunday, I didn’t bother to get up early and just got on the road around 0700 local. A few hours later I was in my spot on Taum Sauk and got the station fired back up. To my surprise there was a fair amount of activity and looked like maybe there was a little bit of Es going. That wouldn’t last and it was back to the grind of trying to scare up Qs out to a couple hundred miles. Bored to tears by early afternoon, I packed up and headed towards home. Stopped along the way in EM48 to run through another fairly quick round with the usual folks and then headed the rest of the way home.

Until next time… thanks for the Qs!

Gear:
Flex 6600 / Q5 Signal 5BVUX
50 - 200w - Directive Systems 3el Yagi @ 20’
144 - 200w - Directive Systems 6el Rover Yagi @ 12’
222 - 100w - Directive Systems 10el Rover Yagi @ 10’
432 - 100w - Directive Systems 15el Rover Yagi @ 8’