[VHFcontesting] KK6MC/r in CQ VHF Contest

James Duffey JamesDuffey at comcast.net
Sun Jul 20 23:00:45 EDT 2008


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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