W6/NC-350 Loma Alta January VHF Contest

I did pretty well in the 2018 contest from Loma Alta, so I decided to head up again for this year's contest. The peak is in CM88qa, very close to the south border of the grid. This year I had my transverter for 222MHz, so I was all mode there. I also made an extended double zepp for 6m, to go with the one I have for 2m.

View down Lucas Valley.

It had been rainy all week, but thankfully the storm blew out on Friday. It was cloudy and overcast, but the rain held off while I was on the summit. I parked at the Big Rock trailhead. It was a quick hike up despite the heavy pack. Nothing like 100' of coax to slow you down.

A brief break in the clouds mid afternoon.

I set up in the same place as last year. I think I've finally figured out the best way to set up the pole with all the yagis. I have to stake it out while its empty, then take it down, add the antennas, then put it back up. The other pole I just strapped to the fence and strung out the zepps.

My portable antenna farm. Arrow 146/437 on top, Arrow 222 on bottom. 6M EDZ in an inverted-V on the other pole, with a 2m vertical EDZ below it.

I had some time before the contest, so I put up my MFJ whip and worked some of the regular chasers on 20. Later in the afternoon I did some more CW on 30 using the 6m EDZ antenna. The tuner in the KX3 will match anything. I had a brief scare when it looked like my big battery wasn't providing any power. I quickly found I had connected the voltage-reducing diodes the wrong way.

So much stuff.

I also forgot to bring a pen or pencil, so I had to do all the logging on my phone. This was annoying, but didn't stop my fun. As expected, I got lots of contacts on 2m. This seems to be the money band. I was surprised how many contacts I got on 222, and I was even more surprised that I worked some people first on that band. In the past I've gotten two or three contacts on 222. Over half my contacts on 222 were mults, and nearly half on 6m were.

Looking up the "tower".

There were a few people I could hear in the central valley, and I got three grids there. K6MYC in DM07 worked hard to get me on three bands, but I was too weak for him to hear me on 432. WE6C was up in CM99, but he only had 2 meters. It would have been nice to get more mults from him. And AE6GE was in DM06, but could only hear me on 6.

Some birds checking out the end of my 6m EDZ. Mt Tam was in the clouds all day.

Shortly before I had to pack up there was an opening on 6. All of a sudden I could hear some stations in the LA area, then XE2JS started booming in. I tried to work him, but he couldn't get my complete call. I should have tried CW but didn't think of it at the time. I looked it up, he was about 1100 miles away in DL68.

Sunset over the Marin hills.

 The hike down was pretty dark, but it was easy to follow the wide fire road back to the car. I was able to make it back without needing my headlamp.

The lights come on in San Rafael.

For the next contest there are some changes I hope to have done. I want separate antennas for 144 and 432. I also need some antenna switches to switch the IF signal between transverters. Maybe a little Arduino controller can read the band data from the KX3 and do the switching automatically. I'm  hoping to have a 1296 setup, and maybe even something on 902. I also think I should find an antenna for 223 and 446 vertical polarization. Maybe a tri-band j-pole will work? Maybe a dual band (146/446) antenna will be enough since 222 is not very popular. I worked people on FM with horizontal polarization, but maybe I could have worked more if I had a different antenna.
A stretch goal is to have a setup to run FT8 and MSK144. I think I could get a lot more mults on 6, and maybe even on 2 if I had FT8 running in the background. I have a Raspberry Pi, and I've seen people running WSJT on them, so I'd just have to make it portable.

Looking towards Mt Tam.