ARRL VHF Contest - June 2022

Harry WA0CNS and Herbert AF4JF went to Potosi, MO in EM47 and De Soto, MO in EM48 to make some contest QSOs as Rovers on Saturday June 11th. Worked several stations on the usual bands CW/SSB, nothing unusual. The location on one of the highest hills in Missouri is good, definitely worth returning there.

Herbert AF4JF/r getting ready to have fun in EM47ow

Harry WA0CNS/r in EM47ow

Herbert moved to De Soto in EM48rd to make some contacts with Harry later in the afternoon. We have both returned home for the night and went to the Egyptian Hamfest in Granite City, IL on Sunday. Made several more contest QSOs from the Hamfest parking lot in EM48wr. Herbert fried his power inverter (that makes 110V AC from 12V DC, needed to run the 40W PA for 23cm) and finished in the early afternoon, Harry went to Edwardsville in EM58 to activate another grid.

Everything considered, a successful weekend. Little too hot outdoors. We will try to do even better next time.

More activity from EM47

Several HAMs from wide area between Fort Wayne, Chicago, Saint Louis and Huntsville became active during the MAD (Microwave Activity Day) on Saturday March 5. The main idea behind this activity was to make some QSOs on the 3456MHz band before recent FCC changes force us to move down in frequency to 3400MHz. Some of us combined this with activity on 10GHz and even other VHF+ bands. 

The SLAMS group also participated - Harry WA0CNS went to High Ridge EM48rl, Herbert AF4JF went South to EM47ow and Zack W9SZ was in EN50ue. The guys we tried to work were K9PW, K9JK, W8BYA, KV4PC and others. Unfortunately, the weather was warm but very windy. Way too windy. It complicated setting up the antennas big time. My (AF4JF) tripod with 10GHz dish got kicked over by wind gusts twice. I ended up holding it with one hand for 2+ hours. No way to set up my other bands (1296, 2304 and 3456MHz) that we wanted to play with. 

The EM47 location near Potosi, MO is on a hilltop (a windy hilltop), wide open to nearly all directions, with a big parking lot on the top of the hill. I have had to move around that parking lot between attempts on QSOs to get unobstructed view in the desired direction, but generally that location turned out to be very good. Even better, it is about 100km South from St. Louis, which makes it very interesting for QSOs with the guys in the "4" land. 

I have tried 10GHz with several stations mentioned above, but only succeeded with Gedas W8BYA - we managed to make a RS contact over 577km between AF4JF in EM47 and W8BYA in EN70. Funny was that we achieved that through "backscatter" on a rain cell over Cedar Rapids, Iowa! That cell was nowhere close to the direct line between us ... a nice proof that EVERYTHING is possible on the 10GHz band!

Several pictures attached.

See the white rope that keeps the dish from tipping over in the wind?

Aiming North to work W8BYA over RS on 10GHz

Looking South towards the "4" land

Looking North towards Saint Louis / Chicago / Cedar Rapids

Looking Southeast (I had to move a little while trying with KV4PC)