ARRL June VHF Contest
Call: W0ZF/R
Operator(s): W0ZF K0BBC AE0EE
Station: W0ZF/R
Class: Unlimited Rover HP
QTH: MT/SD/MN
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 69 36
2: 9 5
222:
432: 6 4
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 84 51 Total Score = 4,590
Club: Northern Lights Radio Society
Comments:
6m: 100W, Moxon at 13'
2m SSB/CW: 25 W, 6 el at 12'
2m FM: 50 W, mobile dual-band vertical
432 SSB/CW: 175 W, 15 el at 11'
440 FM: 50 W, mobile dual-band vertical
Grids activated: DN75, DN85, DN95, EN05, EN15, EN25.
For several weeks, the W0ZF/R team of Dave (W0ZF), Matt (K0BBC) and me
(AE0EE) have been planning a rover expedition to DN75 and DN85, in
southeastern Montana and northwestern South Dakota. Two years ago in
the VHF contest, we roved to the MT/SD state line at Camp Crook, SD,
and found a good VHF operating spot at Capitol Rock, Montana. We
figured it was time to go back, and that this time armed with MSK144
for meteor scatter, we'd do a little better about handing out the rare
grids to folks who needed them.
Friday morning, we met around 6:30 or 7 AM to get the antennas on the
mast, the mast in the tower on Dave's truck, and the cables all
connected and secured. Three hours later, we were on the road. The
goal was to reach Ekalaka, MT, in DN75, in one day, allowing us to
warm up for the contest with meteor scatter Saturday morning from DN75.
Ekalaka is only about an hour away from Capitol Rock, so we would have
time between the end of most of the meteor scatter and the beginning of
the contest. We could use that time to explore or make equipment
preparations.
The drive along I-94 through North Dakota was generally uneventful,
though with the high winds the antennas and mast were given a thorough
shake-out. We made a few QSOs on 6m on our way, mostly on JT9.
As darkness fell and a thunderstorm headed our way, we neared Ekalaka
(pop. 332). Being the hopeful ham that I am, I gave two calls on
146.52 FM simplex. Shockingly, I got a response. One of the four
licensed amateurs in Ekalaka was monitoring 146.52 and called us back.
We exchanged location info, realized we were quite close and getting
closer, and arranged to meet by the hotel for a tour of the rover
station. Tom, KG7YZK, told us that we were the first station he'd
ever heard on 146.52 (we hadn't heard much of anyone out there before
either). When we met up in town, he gave us a few ideas of good VHF+
operating locations nearby and how to access them.
Saturday morning we ran meteor scatter from main street, and were able
to contact Vince, K0SIX, (among others) to get him one closer to the
Fred Fish Memorial Award. After the contacts stopped coming, we
tightened down the U-bolts in the mast base for travel. We stopped by
the hardware store to get a cotter pin to replace one which had
sheared off the quick-release antenna mount on our way to Montana.
Lesson learned: the quick-release plates are not intended for taking
down the interstate on a windy day.
We headed out of town with instructions from one of the locals about
how to get to the county's high point, which is on public land.
Unfortunately he wasn't able to join us to show us exactly how to get
there, and while we got close, we ended up operating from a nearby
spot that wasn't as high. It still had pretty darn good takeoff
angles in most directions, and we suspect we saw Devil's Tower about
50 miles distant. The band was mostly closed and the contest was on,
so we decided to take the opportunity to run-and-gun over to Capitol
Rock, which we were familiar with and which was closer to the grid
boundary.
By the time we reached Capitol Rock, there was a bit of an opening,
and Dave worked on our Worked-All-Texas-Hams award. With a little
downtime, I explored the geology of Capitol Rock which had been
tantalizingly close two years ago, but which I hadn't seen from closer
than a quarter mile. A nearby butte looked like a nice spot to take
some photographs, so armed with my camera and FM handheld, I headed up
while Matt tried some repeaters with his handheld. As I reached the
top, I heard chatter on 146.52 FM from near Buffalo, SD (25 miles E).
I gave a few CQ calls, but with no response. After taking some
photographs and enjoying the scenery, I headed back to the truck.
When the pileup had been worked down, we headed on our way toward
dinner in Buffalo, a quick stop in Slim Buttes, and the hotel in
Bison, SD. As we wound our way down the hills, we again heard chatter
on 146.52, and called them. We had a quick conversation with a pair
of storm spotting tour guides, then worked them again after we crossed
the DN85 grid boundary a mile or two into South Dakota for some
much-needed multipliers.
At Slim Buttes, we fired up the K3's transverters and the amplifiers
in preparation for running 144, 222, and 432 MHz. Unfortunately, we
had some issues with the amplifiers. Magic smoke was released from
the 222, and something weird was happening with the 144 amplifier. We
continued on to the hotel as darkness fell.
Sunday morning, we again got going early on meteor scatter. With
power lines over most of the streets, we looked for spots out of town.
Although we found one, it was several miles from the hotel, so it
would be difficult to get between the two (or to breakfast). We ended
up operating across the street from the hotel, near power lines that
were remarkably quiet. Again we handed out meteor scatter contacts,
now from DN85. K0SIX got in the log, adding a second new grid this
weekend!
With dry weather, when the meteors stopped producing contacts we took
a look at the amplifier situation. Antenna spacing may have been an
issue, so with a dead 222 amplifier, we took down the 222 beam and
widened the spacing of the 50, 144, and 432 MHz antennas. Although
the 2m amplifier was still acting strangely, the transverter was good
for about 20-25 W, so we decided to get going and run barefoot
there---it's not like we were likely to use it much anyway.
A few hours later we neared the descriptively named Mobridge, SD,
where there is a BRIDGE over the MO River in DN95. Seeing a wonderful
takeoff angle toward Minnesota, we set up on a ridge and pointed east.
After a few minutes, we again worked K0SIX on 50 MHz MSK144. On FM,
we worked SD section manager Chris, KI0D/R for a pair of bands, and
arranged to meet for lunch and a quick dual-band FM rover-pack across
the DN95/EN05 boundary.
Late afternoon was pretty slow, but we worked Lloyd WB0ULX on a few
bands from a couple grids. As we neared the Buffalo Ridge, he
mentioned that the bands were starting to open toward the south. With
the band up and down quickly, we decided to throw some CW at the
problem: JT9 is too slow for the fast fading, and MSK144 has too few
operators (yet). Although we had planned to use F-key CW from N1MM+,
the software wasn't configured quite properly and so there was keying
but no modulation or power [rig configuration problem solved Monday].
We were behind schedule and my short-leashed iambic paddle was deeply
buried in the bed of the truck. Getting to it would be quite a bit of
time and effort, when we wouldn't be making contacts or miles. I
reached down and got the J-38 straight key, and went to town. Two
hours and a second rover grid later, I'd added about 25 contacts with
quite a few new grids. As the contest came to a close, Matt mopped up
the few stations left that we could hear on 6 m SSB. We arrived
safely at Dave's just before midnight.
There were a lot of highlights from the expedition: FM simplex with
Tom in Ekalaka for his first QSO on 146.520, making QSOs on meteor
scatter, helping Vince cross off about 10% of his remaining grids for
FFMA, hearing another station on FM simplex in DN85 and getting the
rare DN85 multiplier, meeting with Chris, and an epic 2-hour run on a
straight key (18-20 wpm at 60 mph).
We learned that the quick-release plates are not intended for
interstate driving, that the JT modes (both JT9 and MSK144) are
extremely useful for rovers, and that a preamplifier for 50 MHz is
very useful with the K3---many times we couldn't quite hear stations
that were calling us. Hopefully for next time we can upgrade the
laptop so we can move from 100 Hz to 200 Hz tolerance on MSK144, and
we can get the amplifier/transverter issues figured out and remedied.
So that's my story of the W0ZF/R expedition to DN75, DN85, and grids homeward.
Bill, AE0EE EN34
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