ARRL June VHF QSO Party
Call: K7RAT/R
Operator(s): N5KO N6TR
Station: K7RAT
Class: Limited Rover LP
QTH: OR
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 47 34
2: 58 27
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 105 61 Total Score = 6,405
Club: Willamette Valley DX Club
Comments:
This was our first experience being a rover. It builds character for sure!
Thanks to the fine tools available on the internet (satellite pictures and
Google street view) - many of the places we visited felt like we had already
been there.
We activated 11 grids and made 105 total QSOs - all on six and two meters.
The radio was an Elecraft K3 with an external brick for two meters. Antennas
were dipoles when in motion, and a four element six meter beam and 9 element
two meter beam. You can see our portable tower system in the pictures
available at http://www.kkn.net/~tree/gallery/PortableTower.
Our plan was to finish the contest near my home QTH - and we were only 15
minutes away when the contest ended.
Grid Six Two (QSOs/grids)
DN14 4/3 4/4 > Near cemetary, north of Haines, OR
DN15 3/2 3/2 > Just northeast of Haines, OR - under where the wind
generating windmills are.
DN05 15/9 15/11 > Deadman Pass
DN04 2/1 5/4 > Ritter Butte (which did not work very well)
DN03 5/4 6/5 > Juniper Mountain
DN02 7/7 9/9 > Juniper Mountain
CN92 1/1 1/1 > Mobile
CN93 1/1 4/3 > Mobile + a hill
CN94 1/1 4/3 > Mobile
CN84 2/1 1/1 > Mobile
CN85 6/3 5/2 > Mobile
Total 47/23 58/16 plus the 22 bonus multipliers.
Ritter Butte was strange. It looked like we had a fantastic QTH to the west,
but only could work stations in CN87 and CN88 (and not very many of them). It
was our biggest disappointment of the weekend.
Juniper Mountain was a nice surprise. Good road to get up there, and good
results. Battle Mountain was good for a few QSOs in the mobile. Trey started
one and then we went behind a hill. I found a road that took us up above the
hill and the QSO was completed easily.
Two of the surprising mobile QSOs were W7EW calling us while in CN93 on the
other side of the mountains - and K7CW who heard us while in CN85 in a pretty
poor QTH.
In summary - of all of the crazy ideas I have come up with over the years,
this
was one of them. We might do this again however - as an excuse to go drive
through some beautiful country and visit some hams that we never seem to find
the right excuse to visit otherwise.
Lessons learned:
- bring spare nuts for the U bolts (thanks to NK7U for providing a few, which
was just enough).
- tighten the nuts on U-bolts so they don't fall off on the freeway
- AC inverters make some noise on six meters - not so bad on two. (will be
working on making mine more quiet for next time).
- A dipole on two meters about 3 feet above the top of the car is a
pretty good antenna!!
- Ritter Butte is a beautiful place to watch the sunset - but sucks for
making QSOs.
After this weekend - I felt like we should have a 10 or 20 kHz window for
Rovers to call CQ in while in motion (CW only?). Would be a fun place to keep
an ear on.
73 Tree N6TR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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