[3830] ARRL Sep VHF K1XH Rover LP

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                    ARRL September VHF QSO Party

Call: K1XH
Operator(s): K1XH, W1ECT
Station: K1XH

Class: Rover LP
QTH: FN43, FN33
Operating Time (hrs): 6

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  23      7
    2:  39     13
  222:           
  432:  22     27
  903:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  84     27  Total Score = 2,439

Club: 

Comments:

Here's a summary of K1XH/W1ECT weekend rover expedition (our first)...

We had a Cushcraft dual band 5-el (2&70cm) and my home-brew 3-el 6m antenna on a
15 foot mast.  This mast was 4 sections of telescoping aluminum tubing of the
type used for antenna elements and the top section is 1-5/8".  The mast was
guyed to cinder blocks in about a 6-foot radius circle and was quite stable.  It
has a PVC pipe cap on the bottom for a low-friction mast-to-earth interface and
was located right outside the window.  Rotating this mast was a simple matter of
reaching out the window, grabbing it, and giving it a twist.

We also had an 8-element Hy-Gain 2m antenna (12-foot boom) and a KLM 16-element
70cm antenna (11-foot boom) on a telescoping carbon fibre mast that was mounted
to the trailer hitch on the back of the truck  These antennas were up about 10
feet and were turned with a TV rotor powered from a 12vdc->ac inverter.

Our equipment was a couple of FT-857s with external amplifiers for 2m (100
watts) and 70cm (100 watts).  The set up took a bit longer than I had thought, a
bit over an hour.  This is something that can be improved upon with a bit of
practice and some simplification if we decide to give it another try.

(Pictures at: www.xmlog.com/rover)

We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why things were very flaky on
6m.  We had problems with transmitter instability and distorted audio regardless
of which rig we used.  The jury is still out here, perhaps it was a problem with
RF-feedback...  At one point while we were trying to debug this problem one of
the 857s started acting strangely - some of the front panel buttons stopped
working as well as the corresponding buttons on the microphone.  Swapping
panels, cables, and doing various resets didn't help and we began to suspect we
had fried the rig for sure.  Fortunately Micky had dumped all his memory
settings to disk the previous evening and for some reason reloading these
memories cleared the problem.  This just goes to prove the old adage that
sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Our location was the south-facing parking lot of Mt. Kearsarge which gave us a
great field-of-view of about 180 degrees.  It couldn't have been a more perfect
day, with nary a could in the sky and temperatures in the 70's.

We got started just a bit after 2PM and started tearing things down about 8:30
or so.  The tear-down went quite a bit more quickly than the set-up even though
we were doing it in the dark (while being entertained by some hard-partying
campers at the summit).

We stopped at the exit 12a rest area (I-89) on the way back home just so we
could feel more like an official rover and operate from more than one grid.  We
picked up 3 QSOs using the dual-band whip on the truck.

Our best DX was probably working into Morgantown, Pa. on 2 meters and Wilkes
Barre Pa. on 70cm.  I had been hoping to get 100 QSOs in the log and perhaps
participate in some kind of 6m opening but all-in-all I think the expedition can
be deemed a success.  

      QSOs Points Grids
6m      23     23     7
2m      39     39    13
70cm    22     44     7
Totals  84    106    27

Score = 2,439
Time on = 6 hours


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