[3830] ARRL Sep VHF K2EZ/R Limited Rover LP

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ARRL September VHF Contest

Call: K2EZ/R
Operator(s): K2EZ
Station: K2EZ/R

Class: Limited Rover LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 29

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  105    17
    2:  138    17
  222:   88    15
  432:   92    14
  903:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  423    76  Total Score = 45,828

Club: 

Comments:

I suspected it would hurt my score, but did it anyway and opted to depart from
the successful pattern of my January and June roves.  This time I decided to
start in New England and end up near home to save the 5 to 6 hour dead head
home after the contest.  This change also gave me opportunity to catch a bit of
the Boxboro convention that was just an hour north of my start point in FN43.

My best way to describe conditions were simply....odd.  The bands weren't noisy
and there didn't seem to be high ground losses that I seen other times weakening
6m relative to 2m.  At the same time there was little sign of any of the
enhancement that could usually be expected.  There may have been a bit
enhancement on 1.25 and 70cm but no openings for me at least.  

What seemed to happen was conditions were very balanced.  I went thru most of
the contest with the essentially the same number of multipliers on all four
bands.  It might shift for a short bit and then balance out again.  There was
zero sign of the sort of enhancements that result in 6 and 2 getting a bit more
reach.

I did wonder if part of the problem getting more distant stations was a result
of a continued rise of digital modes and coordinating online.  Both things not
really available to me in the rover.  FT8 seemed to be the one everyone was
talking about.  Hardly heard mention of MSK144 which was the big one earlier in
the year.  

I did hear that there was some good enhancement between the Midwest and some
points west of me, but just didn't extend to where I was.

I generally heard stations in New England complaining how low activity was
while others further south were talking about how busy they were. 

My decision to start in New England cost me some very productive time that I
had experienced in FN21 in the January and June contests.  New England was
pretty dry as others had complained and by the time I got to FN21 there wasn't
much activity so my QSO count for that grid was down by nearly 70 Qs.

Early morning Sunday when in FN10 I caught up with K0BAK/R who was headed out
and he was kind enough to make a detour to re-visit FN11 to give me four mults
I would otherwise have not gotten plus QSOs with him from that grid and one
other.  

Later Sunday when I was getting ready to leave my FM19 spot two rovers, K8GP/R
and WA3PTV/R, rolled into the site on each other's heels resulting in an
un-planned three way rover rendezvous.  None of us had worked each other within
that grid so we spent some time having a QSO fest.  A fourth rover not with us
was close and all four of us worked each other thru all our bands.  I
appreciate K8GP/R taking the lead to help keep some order to all the potential
chaos.

I left the site to them two and went down the hill a bit to get clear of their
strong local signals.  I made my final Qs there about 250 miles out into Ohio
working K8TQK on the bottom three bands.  They weren't particularly difficult
once I drove around a bit trying to peak his signal.  For some reason I got him
best about 300 ft down from the summit.

I was somewhat disappointed at the multiplier situation.  I came really close
to getting no multipliers at all from two of the thirteen grids I activated. 
Fortunately between K0BAK's detour as mentioned earlier got me all four mults
for FN11 and I finally caught WB2JAY for all FN30 mults.  To give an idea how
bad this was, NYC is FN30 and I had direct eyeball view from three grids.  Not
one FM contact.  This was in part due to bad timing.  Had I started in NJ like
I did in January and June I probably would have locked those mults in the first
hour.

While the Q count was down from previous roves at only 423 Qs, given the timing
issues which I expected to hurt me, and the other complaints I heard, I am
fairly satisfied.


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