One of the things that makes a VHF contest so much fun is that you never know how its going to play out. One of the major factors is sporadic-e propagation which is, well, sporadic. Sometimes we get rewarded with decent propagation and sometimes we get completely skunked.
In the morning, before the 2012 CQ World Wide VHF Contest started, the 6 Meter band was open from Colorado to the east. The band continued to be open to various locations for most of Saturday, even late into the evening. I made my last contact on 6 Meters to the Pacific Northwest after 10:30 PM local time.
On Sunday morning, 6 Meters gave us some more fun but it was not nearly as good as Saturday. Instead of strong signals and consistent runs, the signals were variable and QSOs were often a challenge. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth. This contest only uses two bands: 6 Meters (50 MHz) and 2 Meters (144 MHz). As 6 Meters pooped out, the action moved to 2 Meters. Fortunately, we had a number of rovers out that helped activate some of the rarer grids. Thanks W3DHJ, AB0YM, KR5J and W0BL.
This is probably my best score ever in the CQ WW VHF Contest, due to the excellent propagation on Saturday and some station improvements I’ve made over the past couple of years.
Band QSOs X pt = QSO pts. X Grids = Points
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50 337 1 337 130 43810
144 34 2 68 13 884
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TOTALS 371 405 143 57915
Claimed score = 57915
All in all, a great weekend on the VHF bands.
73, Bob K0NR