The 2012 January VHF Contest results were just announced...
the team of WA7KVC and WE7X finished second by a hairs-breadth to WW7D in
the Pacific Northwest standings. Cool!
Complete details on the Pacific Northwest VHF Society pages
(n6kw.net/pnwvhfs/2012/201201.html) are reproduced below.
* = PNWVHFS Member operating outside the Society region. Not eligible for PNWVHFS Awards.
¿=Not a member of PNWVHFS. Not eligible for PNWVHFS Awards.
£=Log received after deadline. Not eligible for PNWVHFS Awards.
Band Codes: A - 50 MHz, B - 144 MHz, C -
222 MHz, D - 432 MHz, E - 902 MHz, F - 1.2 GHz, G -
2.3 GHz, H - 3.4 GHz, I - 5.7 GHz
PNWVHFS AWARD WINNERS
Certificates at the PNWVHFS Conference in October 2013
WW7D Rover-Limited: Grids activated CN87 CN88 CN97 CN98
Tough contest for a rover because of the uncharacteristic
heavy snow during the week before for Western Washington.
Only managed to get stuck once--took an hour to dig out (in between
QSOs, of course).
WA7KVC Rover-Limited: Operators WA7KVC and WE7X, Grids activated CN76 CN77 CN78 CN87 CN88 CN97
Rod WE7X and Barry WA7KVC went roving around Olympic Peninsula
coastline on January 21-22 during this ARRL January 2012 VHF Contest.
Our goal was to activate the remote lowland coastal grids in the state
during the VHF contest. This is the dead of winter so other possible
destinations that involved "hilltopping" or the rugged Pacific
Northwest mountainous inland grids was still digging out from snowfall,
ice storms, downed trees, mudslides, widespread power outages and
closures. To set the stage, you should realize that Rod's home had been
without power for two days before the contest, and their neighborhood
was still dark when we returned. Barry's home had power restored just
before we left. Our plan to target the "warmer" ocean coast was mostly
successful - at least it didn't rain all the time during our trip.
Sometimes it snowed for awhile instead. I love the banter when calling
from the CN78 coastline: "CQ CQ, CQ Sekiu, CQ from Sekiu, CQ to Sekiu,
and CQ everywhere else". All hams should have a chance to visit a place
that can generate so much mind-boggling confusion. During the 650-mile
drive, our constant companions were rain, cold, wind, squalls, snow and
fog. But it was fabulously scenic. Photos and route and more exciting
highlights are at http://www.wa7kvc.com. Barry WA7KVC (with a big
thanks to Rod WE7X for all his great help!)
KL7YK Rover: Grids activated BP41 BP51
May not be one of the big guns even up here in Alaska but I get
out and try to provide contacts for the other players up here. No
grand 6m openings, only a little thermocline ducting on VHF. Was
cold, day started at -11 degrees F but warmed up to 5 above. Did
plant a 6m loop in the snow berm for that band since I was
rover. It worked rather well for local contacts, was 6 feet above
the snow.
KD7UO: This was more like Field Day conditions! Big
ice storm meant no A/C mains, ran the first half of the 'test on a
genset. But made the best of it and as always, a lot of fun!
KI7JA: Having blown my 80 amp pwr supply, I could not run
my SSPA's. So, only low power this time. An opening to AZ
and NM on 6M made this contest fun.
VE7DAY: I enjoyed the contest even though I didn't make many contacts.
K5QE Multi-Unlimited: Grid EM31 Operators K5QE, K5MQ, KN5O, W6XD, N5NU, K5AIH, WN2E, N5YA, K5YG, N5KDA
We made a serious effort to maximize our Q count and grid counts
for this contest. Saturday started out with a great 6M
opening. For us, this is unheard of!! Jason-N5NU had an hour with
over 200 QSO's made on 6M. This was really exceptional in
January. Sunday saw spotty 6M propagation with some DX. We made
good use of meteor scatter on 6M and 2M during the late night hours. We
installed 5.7G and 10G for this contest, but it did not work at
all. Murphy must have been sitting on the little dish.
Otherwise, no station problems. 2M EME contacts were down this time to
about half of normal and 432 was a total loss. However, we made a new
record score for K5QE in the January contest, so we have to be happy
with the results.