2021 ARRL January VHF Contest

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     While I made significant improvements in equipment for the rover since the June VHF contest, this years ARRL January VHF finds me needing to stay close to home. My wife had a serious medical issue that required emergency surgery on 1 January 2020 (great way to start of a year) and she's recovering. So, I have everything set to go as a Single Operator Low Power (SOLP) station this year.

Here's the equipment rundown:

6-meters    Yaesu FTDX-3000 running 100 watts SSB/CW and 50 watts digital into a homebrewed 6m Moxon antenna.



2-meters    Icom IC-706MkIIG into an RF Concepts 170-watt amplifier into a 4-element 'Cheap Yagi'



1.25-meters The Icom IC706-MkIIG provides the 10-meter IF for a Ukrainian 220 transverter with 6 watts output into a 6-element 220MHz 'Cheap Yagi'.


70 cm The Yaesu FT-857D runs 20 watts into an 11-element 'Cheap Yagi'.



My 6-meter station runs an instance of N1MM logger and it's networked with the 2/70 station. I did this to make it possible to run FT8 on 6-meters and work 'targets of opportunity' on 2-meters. It takes considerable time to switch between bands when running a single radio so this should be quite nice! My goal for the contest is to beat 2019's score of 60 where I didn't have anything on the air for 6-meters. The planned goal is to make 500 or more points.

    As you can see, I am running all homebrewed antennas that were built during the initial lockdown due to COVID-19 back in March and April. My job had me teleworking and it was easy to slip into the garage during slow periods to build some antennas. The WA5VJB 'Cheap Yagi' site has plans for antennas from 2-meters up to 1.2 GHz. Check it out at WA5VJB Cheap Yagis -- Wood Boom 

    I am open for schedules on any mode and band. Good luck out there!



73 DE WA5RR--Korey

Burkburnett, TX

EM04


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