ARRL UHF Distance Scoring Contest

Some members of the SLAMS group participated on the ARRL UHF Distance Scoring Contest on 6th and 7th of August, 2022, mostly to test our equipment before the upcoming ARRL 10GHz And Up contests.

Saturday the 6th was a very hot day, temperatures in 3 digits. We decided to start a little later in order to survive and even be able to get out the next day. We decided to operate from Saint Louis area (EM48) on Saturday, but go closer to the Kansas border (EM38) on Sunday.

I started at the Community College in Cottleville on Saturday. There is a nice county park in EM48qs (same grid as my house). I have set up at 4:00pm to try with Pete K9PW on 432MHz and 10GHz. However .. I forgot my antenna cable for 432MHz. Pete was located in EN51xr about 395km away. Although the location has a clear shot in the direction of 33deg. and I have worked stations from that area before, we did not make it on 10GHz.

My next try was with Harry WA0CNS who set up at High Ridge in EM48rl. We were able to make SSB QSOs on 10GHz and 23cm (the second one with just 2W of power on my side although I have had my 40W set up). Distance 33km.

AF4JF pointing towards WA0CNS from EM48qs

The day was crowned by a nice RS QSO with Gedas W8BYA on 10GHz. He was in EN70jt as usual and the distance was 515km. Ron KO0Z arrived at the park and we made plans for the next day.

My Sunday started a little inconveniently - by getting out of bed at 4:00am. I wanted to drive to EM38xw and be there when the sun comes out to utilize the morning tropo propagation. We (me and my dog Darcey) arrived right on time and started setting up at 6:30am.

Darcey making sure that I set up everything correctly

We got on 10GHz first and tried with Pete N0OY before the scheduled 7:00am .. but it didn't work. No tropo enhancement between us. We tried several times, then took a break to set up the other bands. And started noticing problems.

Brand new LMR400, factory made but not working

My 23cm did neither receive nor transmit. I spent some time troubleshooting to find out why no receive - the new cable that I replaced since yesterday not working. That was an easy fix (replaced it), but my PA was not transmitting. It was working fine just the day before .. I discovered a blown electrolytic capacitor when I checked it later at home. I have that PA for more than 10 years and I got it as old, used equipment, so that capacitor had full right to fail. It would just be nicer it if would do so at some other time, not in the contest far away from home ... long story short, I was only running 2W on 23cm.

Trying with N0OY from EM38xw

I didn't work Pete N0OY that day. No signal on 10GHz, not even on 432MHz. I have copied his 80W on 1296MHz but he didn't hear my 2W across 498km ...

I have worked Greg WQ0P on 23cm from there. He was able to copy my 2W on 1296MHz across the distance of 354km. Same with Harry WA0CNS who tried to find a location in his area to work me. He finally found a spot in EM48pq and worked me on 1296MHz across 119km. Not bad.

Ron KO0Z arrived with his 24GHz station and we tried to make a QSO on that band. I am running 100mW on 24GHz band, but Ron's station is in the range of microwatts. We have finally made a contact across 1.1km, but it wasn't easy. I will leave the details to Ron.

Working KO0Z on 24GHz using SDR Pluto and a laptop as my IF 

Everything considered, it was a successful contest, even with just 6 QSOs made during its 24 hour span. After packing everything, we went to explore the area and found an acceptable location for RS in the new grid EM39xx. We will test that next time.