The 2016 June VHF contest came and went over the past weekend.\u00a0 It was the first contest since moving out here to AZ where I planned to get on, if even for an hour or two.\u00a0 No yagi antennas in the air, crappy coax, no preamps, no amplifiers.. Just a basic HF + 6M station with a 6-40M vertical and a EFHW hung at about 8′ off the ground.<\/p>\n
Needless to say I spent all my time in the shack on 6M.\u00a0 The vertical was at least 9 db down from the EFHW, even at 8′ off the ground.<\/p>\n
Basically, with the opening on Sunday morning, if I heard them, I could work them, even with the marginal antenna, how height and 70W out of the 1200DX.\u00a0\u00a0 The first opening to DM43 ended about three hours after it started, and I was happy with the results – especially with what I had to work with, as compared to back in FN54 with the multiple towers, pre-amps, hardline, etc etc etc.<\/p>\n
I ended up with about 50 stations worked in a few hours,\u00a0 with the ONLY station that I was not able to work being Lance, in Montana-\u00a0 W7GJ<\/a>\u00a0 “Grape Juice”, as he had a TON on stations calling him.\u00a0 I bet his score was off the hook on this band.<\/p>\n A lot of the local big 6M stations ended up working in the Caribbean as well as Europe during the contest, so the bands were great at times.<\/p>\n