ARRL June 2026 VHF/UHF Contest

[David Tanks]

      Another interesting but disappointing contest. 6 meters was very sporadic.

    I called or someone called me and then they were gone with no chance of

   completing a Q. Happened often. Only 7 hours operating time. Checked 6 

   meters for FT4 activity with no signals heard/seen. Made 2 meteor scatter

    contacts on 6.  Did not attempt any voice contacts with 1 exception: worked

    John N3GLZ on 223.500 FM with maybe 10 watts to a J-pole. Checked 6 

   meters for CW; nothing heard. Did hear weak SSB signals once. 

  

   Single Operator, High Power, 2 Radios, Assisted (had to claim Assisted as I 

   used WSJTX which is a multi-channel decoder).

  

    Kenwood TS-2000X for 6 meters, on a desktop computer, KPA-500 amp 

    at 300-450 watts into 4 elements at 20 feet.

    Icom 706MKIIG for 2 and 432, on a laptop, 200 watts on 2, 20 watts on 432.

    2 meter antenna: 11 element K1FO at 26 feet.

    432 antenna: 22 element K1FO at 23 feet.

     BTECH UV-25X4 Quad-Band mobile for 223.500, maybe 10 watts to a J-pole.

     This was only the 2nd contest where I used 2 computers networked together,

     using N1MM software and WSJT-X Improved. It was easier than I thought!

     I'll change how I had it set up next time; desktop was in front of me, but the

     laptop set up was behind me, so I was constantly swiveling 180 degrees to 

     check out the 2/432 meter screen. Thank goodness I only had 21 contacts

     there.

     
  

     Looking at comments on 3830scores.com I see several people also complaining

     about poor conditions.

     Better luck next time!

     David AD4TJ 

[Edward Tutwiler]

David, back in the last century when I was a rabid 6M AM op, we'd call cq for hours with nothing heard and then all of a sudden a station in the far west would come skipping in.

All of this was with a 5 watt, AM, xtal controlled xmiter and a tuneable rx to find your contact. (I once even worked a bounce off of an airliner. That was quick qso.).

73

Best Regards,
WA4TPE

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[Tim Miller]

I used to love to vhf contest...times have changed and it seems digital is mostly all it is anymore. One contest I broke 500 qso's...all on phone. This was back before FT8. It seems the team that makes the rules won't take the advice of some of the major contesters and change the points values to make the more difficult modes more valuable. The contests at times had as much activity as field day, and if you didn't lock down on an operating freq on the bands, you would be left to hunt and pounce. We've also lost a lot of the real contest stations due to age and lack of interest as well. Again, times change and that's just what happens in life, but I feel your pain Dave. Just think, if you didn't have FT8, what would your efforts have been? We can't even fill 4 hours worth of a single band sprint anymore.