[3830] ARRL June VHF W0ZF/R Unlimited Rover LP

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                    ARRL June VHF Contest - 2019

Call: W0ZF/R
Operator(s): AE0EE K0BBC W0ZF
Station: W0ZF/R

Class: Unlimited Rover LP
QTH: SD
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  144    76
    2:    4     3
  222:           
  432:    3     2
  903:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  151    81  Total Score = 13,552

Club: Northern Lights Radio Society

Comments:

Mode breakdown:
 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
    50  CW      22      22   10   1.0
    50  FT8     50      50   34   1.0
    50  MSK1     6       6    5   1.0
    50  USB     66      66   27   1.0
   144  FM       1       1    1   1.0
   144  USB      3       3    2   1.0
   420  CW       1       2    1   2.0
   420  USB      2       4    1   2.0

As others have remarked, conditions were up and down for the VHF contest.  There
were openings at the beginning, a bit Saturday evening, and then near sunset on
Sunday.  The meteors were pretty good Sunday morning, and we worked several
stations pretty quickly on 6 m MSK144.

I think we learned a few things this weekend:
* Test the generator a week or two before the contest.
* Put gas in the vehicle, generator, and spare fuel tank before leaving the last
major town on the way to a remote contest location.
* Bring 10 GHz in case of thunderstorms!
* It pays to do pre-contest press with the local hams.
* Make sure full rig control and CW keying are ready for the logging
laptop---hand-keying on a J-38 while bouncing down the road is not the most
comfortable or efficient experience.
* Multi-mode rover logging in N1MM+ ( +WSJT-X) is unwieldy; if proper procedures
aren't followed (easy to miss), a few QSOs don't end up in N1MM+, or rover grids
don't get updated in both places.  We had to reconcile manually.
* N1MM+ doesn't support a /R rover suffix for Cabrillo output.

It was fun to work a few stations on 6 meter meteor scatter Sunday morning,
handing out the rare DN94 to several stations closing in on their FFMA award
(e.g. W0VTT).
We came across a few ham-themed businesses (QLF - Quality Liquid Feed; and DX
Bait), which broke up the long drive across the Dakotas.

We met local hams along the way: an entire net in Dickinson, ND, including Jason
(KD0HCR) who we met in person, and  Dean (W7THD) from Ekalaka, MT.  Jason was
almost able to work us Saturday evening at >90 miles, but foliage and crossed
polarization losses were too great to complete the contact.  Dean gave us advice
on forest service road conditions and how best to access the site we had chosen
to operate from, and was able to provide a contest QSO with a rare grid. 
Hopefully we can do more preparation and planning with the local hams for next
year, and get more stations on the air which we can work on 144 and 432 MHz.

We ran an APRS receiver and database program which I (AE0EE) designed to show 2
m propagation conditions.  The program worked (so far as its functionality
allowed), but propagation left something to be desired---we only heard one South
Dakota digipeater (either originating or digipeating a packet) all weekend,
though we took a route that kept us far from many of the larger digipeaters in
the state.

Roving is always an adventure.  One day it's sunny and 92 F with thunderstorms
in the area at nightfall, the next you find yourself on a 4000' AMSL summit
where it's 47 F, windy, and threatening to rain, and the next it's 68 F and
sunny with a nice breeze.  You meet interesting people, get lots of weird looks,
see different wildlife (like the black tern I added to my life list!), and even
if propagation isn't great, it's easy to have fun roving with friends.

73,
  Bill (AE0EE), Matt (K0BBC), and Dave (W0ZF)


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