Not a lot of radio activity right now but there are some updates.

Two weeks ago was the ARRL VHF contest and my club usually goes up to a mountaintop in NY to operate with a small tower for 6m and another small tower for 2m/220cm/440cm. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms and being on the highest point around with metal antennas and towers isn’t safe so we scrapped operating on Saturday but organized a small group to operate on Sunday.

On Saturday I spent 30 mins on the air operating the DRCG RTTY contest and quickly made 26 contacts.

On Sunday a small group met up where we store the club equipment, loaded up their vehicles and headed up to the operating site. It went well will setting up 4 antennas on a small mast and running 4 radios barefoot. We made 271 VHF contacts in a few hours operating even though we didn’t come across any significant band openings. Made for a good weekend even though it wasn’t a full effort.

This past weekend was Field Day and the weather forecast was for constant and heavy rain as well as overnight thunderstorms, so we reluctantly cancelled the club event. I got on for a short bit on Saturday but conditions were poor and didn’t make too many contacts (~50) and on Sunday I did other things and ended up on the air for a very short time making 7 more contacts for a total of 57 contacts. Operating from home on commercial power I was a 1D station. I did sneak in a quick SSB QSO with a Qatar station who was booming in and participating in the King of Spain contest.

Hopefully conditions will improve and if I don’t head out for the weekend I can work a few RTTY contacts in a contest this holiday weekend.

73 & good DX,
K2DSL