[VHFcontesting] W0VOA/r UHF contest summary

[Keith Morehouse]

Grids activated: 5
432 QSOs: 25
222 QSOs: 1
Score: approx 900 pts

I had to make a trip east which had me at Moms house in Northern EN55 over
the contest weekend, so I decided to make a rover appearance as I had
pledged support for the "new" UHF effort back when the original contest was
axed.

I had limited space, limited portable equipment and limited experience
roving so I figured a single band 432 effort would be most productive.  I
put together a station consisting of the IC706MK2G that lives in the truck,
a commercial 200W PA deck, a relay/TR interface and a fiberglass 15'
telescopic mast in the truck bed.  I also brought along a 1296 FM handheld
and a 222/902 FM handheld (on loan from W7QQ) in case I ran across another
rover.

I had prior knowledge of good spots around my 1st stop, the intersection of
EN44/45/54/55, from data provided by K9PW and W9FZ, and also found a few
more.  These 4 grids worked well and I was able to work a small handful of
Qs from each of them on Saturday afternoon and evening before driving the
75 miles back to home base.  Sunday morning was very foggy and we (the XYL
agreed to navigate) were delayed in leaving about 90 minutes.  At about
0730 local, we arrived in EN46 and started looking at the spots I had
picked using Google Earth.  I was concerned about their usefulness prior to
leaving since the area is dense timber wilderness and, sure enough, they
were mostly useless.  We ended up driving around for almost an hour, with
the excellent morning tropo slowly fading, until we found a decent spot in
a town park on the north side of a lake.  After working a number of
stations, including several Qs of well over 350 miles, we broke down and
headed east to the rarest grid of the trip, EN56.  Long story short, I
suggest rovers avoid the SW corner of EN56 in the future and concentrate
further north and east.  We drove around, checking possible sites for
several hours with no luck. No roads, no real clearings and dense woods
everywhere. There was one site we considered, on the edge of a town
airport, but I was sure we could do better. We didn't and the airport was
far behind by the time I made the decision to abort that grid activation.

However, I had gone into this effort not expecting much and being
successful in 5 out of 6 stops, including some Qs I would call DX, made the
trip a success. I had one handi-talky Q on 222 FM with W0UC, so the
addition of low power FM paid off.  I'll probably build on the experience
and rove with more bands in September, back around the DM58 home QTH.

Jay W9RM

Keith J Morehouse
via Moto G