I just got the car unpacked and the rover station dismantled. It was a
good contest for me. I made 79 QSOs, but haven't counted the grids.
The main objective of the trip was to get home from vacation, so I did
not do some things I would have done when I rove.
I operated in motion with a couple of brief stops to try to pick up
weak ones. Six meters was open well, sporadically. There were no long
openings everywhere like there was in the June contest. I was
completely skunked in one grid.
This was my first contest where I have operated the majority of it in
motion. I built a 6M square halo (Squalo) and a 3 element Yagi for 2M.
The squalo was up 11.5 feet and the 2M Yagi, pointing forward 2 feet
below that. NN5K's mount holds up fine at 75 MpH, or even a little
more. We got lots of stares. Lots of questions too. I will post
pictures.
The squalo holds its own with sporadic E. Car noise and not the
antennas was the limiting factor in making contacts on 6. It is also
OK for line sight or a little beyond (diffraction?), say out to 60
miles or so. It is fair for troposcatter when the other station is
well equipped, I worked stations at 150+ miles. But it stinks for the
in between distance for similarly equipped stations. I could only work
Jonesy, rover with another halo, out 50 or 60 miles.
The 3 element 2M Yagi worked OK, but there wasn't much on 2M, even in
Colorado. When I heard someone weak, we pulled off and tried to point
the car towards them. This worked, sort of. Clearly yagis as wide as
the car with a 12 V rotor are the best solution. I had the 6 element
along for fixed operation, but I only put it up twice.
I also operated CW in motion, with Virginia driving. I don't think I
have done that before. It worked OK on a straight key with some slop.
We made a side detour to see W3DHJ's rover setup and spent a pleasant
half hour visiting with him in eastern Colorado cattle country. That
was fun. More to come - Duffey
--
KK6MC
James Duffey
Cedar Crest NM
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