SOME HISTORY

I have always had an interest in the VHF contests. I entered my first in September of 1962 with my original call of K1WHS, and I used them as a way of measuring station performance from year to year.My brother, K1WHT, and I started VHF contesting in the cellar of our home in Westport, CT in 1962. (20 ft above high tide!) We had a Telrex 8 element yagi for 144 MHz, a 10 watt Tecraft transmitter, and war surplus RA-10 receiver. By 1966, my brother and I were banging on the door of National Single Operator Leader from a new QTH in Monroe, CT. All of this took place in Connecticut, not far from the present day QTH of K1TEO. When I moved to Maine in 1972, I was amazed at how different the VHF contest activity appeared from the wilds of Maine. Local activity was low to non existent. Stations were few and far between when compared to activity in Southern New England. The three national high single operator scores we had achieved from Connecticut were a dim memory after a few years in Maine! There was no way to get a decent score, so, while still participating in contests, I turned to 144 MHz EME and was quite active with moonbounce for many years. In 1982, I decided to try operating from the hilltop out behind my house here in FN43MJ. There was no road up there, just some trees and a windswept ridgeline. My first QSO used an Icom IC-502 with a telescoping whip on six meters, all while perched in a convenient pine tree. The results were fabulous. I worked all the New England sections plus New York, and, with 1 watt and a whip on six meters, heard all the way down into Maryland on a Saturday afternoon in the September Contest! I was hooked. A few friends and I, actually operated a few contests to try out the site. Simple gear and QRP was the norm, but results were so gratifying, that my extensive ham station at my house fell into disrepair, as I planned on moving it all to the hilltop. I knew it was a good site, because in September of 1984, I managed to work a 1296 station, N4DT, on Roan Mountain, NC. who was running only one watt. I was running 20 watts cw and a single 27 element loop yagi. Not the greatest lashup on either end!!

As an example of what we were doing back then, I have dredged up some info on what we actually were running in 1984. Push up masts, and a single 30 ft Rohn 25 lashed with ropes, held our antennas. We used a 1.8 kw gas generator.

50 MHz Drake TR6 and six element yagi at 30 ft. 138 Qs 35 grids

144 MHz Ft-726R and 170 watt tube amp, single yagi at 40 ft. 335 Qs 54 grids

222 MHz Transverter, TS-820 single yagi @ 30 ft 59 Qs and 25 grids

432 MHz Two yagis and 17 watts, TS-820 96 Qs and 32 grids

1296 Single SI loop yagi, 20 watts cw. 22 Qs and 12 grids

Our final score was pretty high due to some very good tropo. I remember hearing but not working Florida on 220 MHz that year! The generator was pretty wimpy, so all of the bands could not be running together. That was cool, since we had only a few guys operating anyway. I am not sure of all the operators, but they included AF1T, WA1NIE, K1LL, K1MNS, WB1FGW, and K1WHS.

Over the next few years, a few friends and I embarked on building a road to the hilltop, putting up a tower or two, and dragging a building up there with a bulldozer. As time went on a few more local hams came by and we tried multi operator contesting with an actual shack in place rather than the tents of previous outings. It seemed like a fun thing to do. The towers on the site included two 90 ft towers in 1985. One was a Rohn 55, while the six meter tower was an old WINCO bolt together tower of about the same size. We did more socializing than operating many times. We made our own electricity with an old gas generator that ran at 1800 rpm and produced about 10 kw at one gallon per hour. Along about 1998, we started to get more serious and actually started making some big improvements. Some calls associated with these early operations included K1MNS WB1FGW, K1LL, KY1K, WA1NIE, WA1TFH, N1HFE, N1DPM, and AF1T. We even had WA6MGZ visiting one year! As the station improved, our scores tended to go up each year in the 150-350K range. Starting in 1998, we replaced many antennas mostly as a result of a 100 year ice storm in early 1998 that took down all the six and two meter yagi arrays. We upgraded our microwave gear as well, over the next few years. We changed out our generator in 2001 for a more robust unit. (Look at the Generator-O-Death page) Our old generator would not run four KW stations at once. When September of 2001 rolled around we were ready for good conditions and with some exceptional tropo, managed to break the million point barrier for the first time. We were pretty psyched.

Summer 2002... The endless work party!

Many improvements were made to the station during the summer of 2002. The antenna systems were, in many cases, completely rebuilt, with new or enlarged tower supports for both 144 MHz and all of the microwave bands. The station was off the air with the exception of 50, 222, and 432 MHz for the entire summer from June 15th thru September. We wanted to get into the big leagues, which is hard from a home station in Maine. Changes included the following:

144 MHz: Antennas (4 X 30 ft yagis) raised from 90 ft to 130 ft on a new Rohn 45 tower located 230 ft from the building. Feedline was improved to 1 5/8". Phasing lines were changed to 1/2" LDF Heliax. Tower was fitted with star guying. New Prosistel PST-61 rotor installed.

903 MHz: The 4 X 33 element loop yagis were relocated from a 40 ft tower to a revamped 120 ft Rohn 55 tower (three more sections added along with star guying) and fed with 1 5/8" LDF Heliax. The 903 antennas are at 123 ft.

1296 MHz: The 4 X 45 element loop yagis were moved from a 40 ft tower (with 2304) and located on the 120 ft tower mast at the 132 ft level. Coax is 1 5/8" LDF. The receive front end is located at the antenna.

2304 MHz: The 4 X 76 element Blowtorches were raised from 40 ft to 127 ft and fed with 1 5/8" LDF. Preamp is located at the antenna.

3456 MHz: A single prototype 112 el Blowtorch was moved from a 40 ft tower (along with the 903 system) and placed on the extreme top of the Rohn 55 and 3" support mast at 137 ft above ground. The entire RX and TX sections are located at the antenna so feedline loss is essentially zero! Plans were to replace the single antenna with an already completed and tested quad array of 9112LY Blowtorches in June of 2003. Improvement would be about 6 dB.

5, 10, and 24 GHz were all moved to a sidearm on the 120 ft tower. Each band has TX and RX located at the dish. 5760= 25 watts. 10 GHz = 20 watts, and 24 GHz is about 2 watts output.

The microwave tower (old 144 90 ft Rohn 55 tower) was increased in size to 120 ft with a huge 3" mast that extended things another 15 ft or so. We added star guying, and built a hefty sidearm with 5" galvanized steel angle

There was so much work being done that year, that most of the crew got burned out. There were days when we were having tower races to see who could build a tower faster. We had rock drills running, rock anchors being set. Cement pouring for a few guy points, humping many hundreds of feet of 1 5/8" coax. It took us a few years to get over all the hard labor. The end result was a jump in score from about 350K to nearly 600K under dead band conditions.

2003 IMPROVEMENTS

2003 Improvements included adding a quad array of 112 element loop yagis on 3456 MHz. That change really made the 3.4 GHz station stand out with an extra 5.7 dB of gain. Gain approximates a dish of over 5 ft diameter, but with little wind loading.

A 144 MHz LVA was constructed and consisted of eight short 5 element yagis side mounted on the tower leg, and pointed southwest.

432 MHz 50 ft tower was removed, and a new 100 ft tower replaced it. We doubled the size of the array from 4 to 8 X 25 element yagis. It got its first test in the August UHF contest.

These changes improved our score (especially the 144 MHz LVA!) to almost a million points with normal conditions. (950K)

2004 Improvements

144 MHz the LVA got enlarged from eight to sixteen yagis, and with a vertical beamwidth that was about 3 degrees wide. Operating the new array bordered on a being a religious experience. We got a little tropo on 50 thru 432 that year, and our score cleared a million easily.

50 MHz KW legal limit amplifier built and installed . Previous amp did about 900 watts out.

2005 Improvements

222 MHz added an eight yagi LVA to the existing quad array of yagis . 2005 was a disaster from a propagation standpoint. We had zero tropo, compared to everyone else in the East. We did catch some aurora, and ended up with almost 900K with awful conditions.

THE ANTENNAS IN 2006

The 432 MHz 100 ft. tower is on the left. To the right is a 100 ft. 222 MHz tower, followed by the 120 ft Microwave tower and all the dishes. Next to the right is a short 50 ft tower with more 903 thru 3456 loopers and some FM yagis for 222 and 432. The extreme right tower is a 90 ft. ugly tower with the four 7 element six meter beams stacked along the side. The 144 tower is not visible and well off to the right of this picture.

2006 IMPROVEMENTS

Voice and CW keyers integrated into the computer logging system. Added dedicated networked WSJT laptops on six and two. We replaced the existing 903 quad looper array with a larger 4 X 47 element looper array for about 2 dB more gain.

We added a new 50 ft Rohn 25 tower for VHF FM, and a second "auxilliary" microwave station on 903 thru 3456 to help cover working all the rovers that are out and about. Each band on the "AUX" station uses a single long loop yagi at 50 ft with a motorized coax relay switch. Power runs between 40 and 80 watts on each band. The 24 GHz system got reworked with new power amp, and better receiver front end. We never got the second microwave station running right until late in the contest, and only made a few contacts with it. Still, we cleared 1 million points with absolutely no enhancements of any kind. This was quite a milestone for our small group. We muster about ten operators in total, with an average of seven or so on site at any given time, and maybe three people for tower and antenna projects as they come up.

2007+ IMPROVEMENTS

The 2007 improvement schedule included a complete rework of the 50 MHz antenna system. The main problem was that the old tower was getting pretty rickety to the point where some climbers would not even climb it. Time to replace it, and a 100 ft Rohn 45 tower was installed on the same base as the old junked tower. The existing 4 x 7 element yagis were installed on the new tower and fitted with TIC Ring rotors so that all four yagis may be turned 360 degrees.

Other plans for 222 MHz and 144 MHz have been shelved for the time being. It is getting hard to motivate the troops to make bigger and better things lately!

Now all of this aluminum could not be assembled alone without any help. Our small group of contesters also provides the manpower to do all of the antenna work. Here are some call signs of this group effort:

WB2ONA, N2CEI, K1CA, K1OR, W1MRQ, WA1T, K1DY (EX W3HQT), W2PED, W1SD, WW1M, and KU2A. Without their help and assistance, the "farm" would be a lot smaller!