RT 66 OTA Starts Saturday, Sept 12th

23:59Z or 7PM Central Time.

 

Thanks very much!

 

This turned out to be a hard question to answer. I can't find it anywhere on the web site. But found this on the ARRL site.

Route 66 On the Air
SPECIAL EVENT

09/12/2020
Sep 12-Sep 20, 0000Z-2359Z, W6L, Tulsa, OK. Tulsa Amateur Radio Club. 14.266. QSL. Tulsa Amateur Radio Club, PO Box 4283, Tulsa, OK 74159. Route 66 On the Air is organized by the Citrus Belt Amateur Radio Club; see www.w6jbt.org for list of participating stations. www.w5ias.com

 

Have not Heard W6D, W6L & W6R here in Texas ?????

 

I got all but W6I and W6J... Tried multiple times on each one... FT8, and SSB... Just couldn't get them... a couple of times, I could hear almost all of the stations checking in, but not the rt66 station. Just too close, I guess... I am curious ... do you send in requests for certificates if you don't get a clean sweep? I am thinking I won't... but I will try next year...

 

All but a few elusive ones. Couldn't get A because the spine of the Santa Lucia Mountains was not allowing it and chased J for quite a spell, never could get that contact. Lots of hard work by those teams and much appreciated for the challenge during the week. Made a lot of other QSOs in the process.

I took Sunday off as I was pretty wrung out, but do have the envelopes stuffed, just need to go through every one a last time to make sure they are complete and then drop them off at the post office.

73s to all and massive thanks!

Richard
K8SQB

 

You can get a certificate for working just one. Just fill out the form on the website.

 

Could not get W6F any band or mode. I think the were QRP or had a bad antenna.

 

Reports I saw he was getting out quite well on FT8 and CW, but proximity and all seem to play a lesser role in these things. This was my first time working a multi station even running East to West and I did find the nearer stations much harder to pick out on 20 or 40, but everyone was easily within reach on 80m (except W6A, which seemed to have the spine of a mountain range directly between us and I couldn't work the nearest station. I worked H on four bands, so that was my high water mark.

73
K8SQB
Richard

 

One thing I noticed about events like this, Rt. 66 and 13 Colonies, the operators don't put in near enough time on 40 and 80 meters when skip is short to work the close in stations. They get on 20 during the day and then go to 40 at night which is then the same conditions as 20.

 

I wish to send out a HEARTY THANKS to all the valiant operators who put this on! They worked TIRELESSLY by the radio for more than a week to get it on for those who just had to CATCH THEM ALL, like me. Ham Radio POKEMON! I saw each station very active, no slackers this year! But Propagation was terrible. FT8 seemed to be the Dominant mode. I got about 70% on FT8, the rest on SSB. Didn't see much CW activity this year, FT8 contacts are painfully slow so a few did go to FT4, but very few. I am sure some worked them on ALL BANDS and ALL MODES, but one QSO per station was quite enough!

Again, VERY TNX to all the wonderful Hams out there who activated the stations. And we will do it all again next year, with hopefully better propagation!

 

I got him on 40 SSB. It was a very tough and iffy contact. But I heard him say WHISKEY ALPHA SIX and later MIKE HOTEL ZULU, so if he combined the 2 he got my call correct. SO I THINK I am in the log. Would have liked to have made an Insurance contact on that one, but I logged it. I know some ops had portable setups. In the 13 Colonies event, which is much much easier even from the West Coast, many of the stations are running big beams and Killerwatts, so they put out a whopper of a sig. On RT66, most seemed to be at the100W level at best

 

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE for West Coast. W6A thru W6G are all too close to work on 20, and at night it is hopeless as well. SO I had to stay vigilant for them to come up on 80 and 40 during the day to nail them! If I was working it would have been neglible chance. In past years when I worked, I would watch DX summit and then run out to my car and work them mobile. This year I sat in the SHACK for the whole duration of the event to work them, My schedule was cleared and my life was put on hold until it was over!

 

You summed it up nicely. The 13 Colonies are concentrated along the East Coast, so it's easier to work them if you're located in the Eastern Time Zone, becoming more difficult the farther west that you're located. Route 66 spans much more territory and it's stretched from East to West instead of North to South, which makes it more of a challenge to coordinate bands and times with propagation. There were a few Route 66 stations in the far West that were almost unworkable here in the Northeast. When propagation existed, it was weak, and nearly impossible for eastern stations to overcome the stronger signals from the Midwest and West. I didn't hear any operators ask for specific geographic areas, or work the stations "by the numbers". It boils down to some of the stations not being on the air often enough to take advantage of propagation to all areas, and when they are on the air, instead of just exchanging callsigns, signal report, and State, they rag-chew with each contact while a huge pile-up is waiting to work them.

 

I'm in NJ. I've always been a fan of 40 meters. Back in the late 60's and 70's you would work stations out to a few hundred miles at noon time. Now you don't even hear stations out to a few hundred miles at noon time. Recently at that time I had a qso with WA state and VE7. Running a hundred watts and wire antenna. Oh, and during the HI qso party worked HI on 40 at 9:00am local time, three or four hours after sun rise. Pretty strange.