Rookie Observations – K7UGA Barry Goldwater Special Event

Rookie Observations – K7UGA Barry Goldwater Special Event

I believe this was the first time I have been working pileups vs. me trying to work them! Was also the first time submitted electronic logs (thanks to great help from John, N7NWL) Certainly easier than the old ones required by FCC paper logbooks!

Although licensed in 1964 and very active in the 60s/70s including 75m phone net manager in Minnesota, I have been off the air for 40 years until 2021 (long bio on QRZ).
Due to QTH limitations, I use remotes - mostly big antennas on high towers and high power.

I am not a serious contester, I get bored quickly just exchanging signal reports. Am not a ragchewer either, since run out of things to say??

The K7USA event was a good combination, although hours were limited due to power failures with storms at my two AZ remotes, and dead 40m band some of the time. However, when was on had some good QSO’s about Barry.

I could have made many more contacts with better conditions but managed 137 over my 2 days on 40m SSB. K7RTM seemed to have far better band conditions on Monday 40m SSB - listened to him - a great operator.

Most ops were very skilled when I had to dig them out of the noise level. Although one weak one gives call sign once and jabbers away but could not understand any of it. Had to ask 3 times to repeat or confirm the call - each time he was just giving once. Another contact kind of rambled on and sounded like he was drunk!

On Thursday, I had headset issues and disappeared during a contact for about 10 minutes. A couple of great Texas guys kept the freq open until I recovered.

Operating remote has more technical challenges but home QTH is surrounded by 3 mountains and a big hill, in addition to zoning limits on heights of towers and distance of lot setbacks. The owner of a ham antenna manufacturer looking at my elevation maps told me I better stick with remotes!

Was a great experience for the first time being on the op end of some pileups although most of the time very noisy band conditions. Often I was being heard with 59++ reports but some of them were at my noise level. I seemed to be getting out much better than I was hearing much of the time. The AZ remote is in a rural area, so don’t think it was local noise.

BTW, I have lived in Phoenix for about 30 years but have not yet met a local ham in person (not active till 2021) Ironically, two weeks ago I was in Toronto for 10 days and was introduced and spoke briefly at the in-person meeting of the Mississauga Radio Club! Hope to make rounds of in-person clubs in the Phx area with the better Covid situation... hopefully.
73, Dave WØJKT

 

i saw he / they were spotted but between the qrm / the qsb & the multi qso parties going on along with the low audio & signal i couldnt get the station {s} --

 

I thought we missed most of the contests on the prior weekend. We were running Monday-Friday. Despite poor band conditions on some bands especially 40m where I was an op, some of the time the club made over 1000 contacts including all modes and bands.

I believe it will be an annual event but it's been 2-3 years since K7UGA was activated due to Covid etc.