Ken Harker WM5R
2004 ARRL June VHF QSO Party - K5TR M/L

It was a little bit disappointing not to have propagation on six meters at the start of the contest. Saturday's Eskip opening began around 2113 UTC, with QSOs into the midwest. Things really picked up in the 2200 UTC clock hour, with a 158 hour. I made five QSOs in one minute at 2239 UTC and again at 2243 UTC, which were probably around the peak of the opening. The 2300 UTC and 0000 UTC hours were each slightly down at 129 and 123 QSOs each. The 0000 UTC clock hour was when we first began to work Eskip to our west, into Arizona and New Mexico. We continued to make the occasional Eskip QSO to the west for the rest of the local evening, with the last Eskip QSO of the night coming at 0528 UTC. Our six meter QSO total after one day was only 553 (last year, we had 1,100 six meter QSOs after one day.)

Sunday's Eskip on six meters was nothing like Saturday's. The morning saw some Eskip to the west, and very light, thin Eskip to the east. Our best clock hour on Sunday on six meters was 1400 UTC, with 37 QSOs. The skip mostly shut down around 2000 UTC, and in the final seven hours of operating, we would make a total of only 21 QSOs on six meters. Our final Eskip QSO of the contest was at 0044 UTC. We added only 155 six meter QSOs to the log all day Sunday.

We made a total of 41 QSOs with rovers on all bands. 34 of those rover QSOs were made on six meter Eskip. Of the seven remaining QSOs, only three QSOs were made with stations believed to be actually competing in the Rover category, as opposed to incidental mobile stations, and none of those rovers came closer to us than three grid locators away. We made no rover QSOs on 222 MHz or 432 MHz.

Contest Logging was done with TR LOG contest logging software. The following reports and log were created using TR LOG's post-contest processor.

• Rate Sheet
• Multiplier Distribution
• Contest Log

50 MHz	144 MHz	222 MHz	432 MHz