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Winter VHF Sprint
Sponsored by the Rochester VHF Group
RVHFG.org
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0 Purpose: Contact as many stations on as many VHF (30-300 MHz) bands as possible within a ONE HOUR period.
I didn’t plan to participate in the Winter sprint contest since there was another major ARRL Roundup RTTY contest going on same day. But because I recently built the new system for my rover station and it never was tested. So I decided (motivated by Ryan N7OW) to put the system on my car and check out while there would be some activities on the VHF band. There are only three bands for the contest (6m,2m and 1.25m) but I installed all system that includes 70cm, 33cm and 23cm equipment and antennas.
Recently I purchased new 5 band Q5 signal transverter and it also hasn’t been tested in real contest. Since there were a multiple reasons to spend one hour of contesting and check a new system the decision was made.
It took me a couple hours to install everything on my car included antennas and equipment. It happened on January 1st. I wasn’t able to finish everything so on January 2nd early morning everything should have be ready and up running.
I got up at 6:30am to get everything finish in time. The planned departure time was to 8:15am since it was about 40 minutes drive to the location that I picked. Contest start time is 9am (16z).
Location that I was going to drive is near by superstition mountain right off highway 60 on the east from the Phoenix.
By 8:15am January 2nd everything was ready and I was on my way to the position. I knew that at least N7OW will be participating in the sprint from around same area as I going to be.
After 45 minutes of driving I was on the position and right at 16z time I’ve made my first contact with N1AV.
In less than an hour I’ve made 10 QSOs with 5 different operators from two grid squares. It was great that some HAM’s were able to participate.
It was very good experience and I am happy that checked all setup and got out of home. There were some lessons learned and I need to improve something before ARRL January VHF contest.
Thanks to all who participated and worked with K6VHF. Happy New 2021!!
Some photos from the Winter VHF Sprint 2021.
