[VHFcontesting] Why so few New England rovers?

[James Duffey]

Sean - The IC-746 is a good rig for roving. You will do well with it. You may want to try it out in the CQ WW VHF contest, which only has only 6M and 2M.

For the ARRL contests with more bands, you will do well with the 222MHz FM. People can still work you and the multi is desirable. 

You asked Dean about power handling. I use a deep cycle battery in the car. I charge it directly from the car battery through a ISOpwr. The ISOpwr charges the deep cycle battery whenever the car battery is at 13.5V or greater, and disconnects itself when the car battery voltage falls below 12.7V. This effectively charges the deep cycle battery whenever the car is running and disconnects when it is not, thereby keeping the car battery charged. I also use a W9XJK boost regulator to maintain the voltage at the radio at 13.8V so that as the deep cycle battery voltage drops, the voltage to the radio remains the same. This is an effective system and requires little thought to keep running. The hardest part is running a wire from the car battery into the passenger compartment, but that can be done with some patience and perseverance. I use Anderson PowerPoles and they make hooking up DC power connections straightforward and mistake free. 

The 746 has three antenna outputs, one for 6, one for 2, and one for HF. Use the HF one for a transverter. I am not sure if the power out can be set by independently band, if it can you don’t need to worry too much about blowing up the transverter, if it can’t you can put an attenuator between the 746 and the transverter and if you forget to turn down the transceiver, all you will do is blow the attenuator. Carry an extra attenuator. DEMI makes such a device commercially. 

Make contact with the big contest stations and ask them for suggestions  as to which grids are they would like you to operate from. 

Don’t try to bite off too much at first. Concentrate on getting a few bands up and running and then add bands. I think choosing locations and a route the most important part of roving, followed by power management and then antennas and their mounting. With that in hand you can use pretty much any rig, identify what you like and dislike about it and then concentrate on that. 

Also operating style is important. Be quick and precise. Use phonetics. QSY stations when you work them. QSY with stations when they ask you to. Use headphones, preferably a headset with a foot switch for PTT. If there is nothing to work on phone, try CW, and vice versa. If there is nothing to work on 6M, try 2M. Avoid hogging the calling frequencies. Use computer logging with the computer interfaced to the rig if possible. A K1EL Winkeyer is good to have for CW.

Color coding things by band is a good way to keep things straight. You will end up with a lot of wires and cables to hook up and it is easy to mix things up. Color coding makes keeping track of things easier.  You can buy a pack of various colored electrical tape at most hardware stores.   

After dark, a headlamp is nice to have. A compass is good to have for finding bearings. Keep spare hardware, nuts, bolts and washers. A small tool kit is useful. Trying to minimize different sized hardware is useful. 

You will need to come up with a good answer to “What is that thing?” Listen for the weak ones. - Duffey KK6MC




On Jun 20, 2016, at 8:51 PM, Sean Waite <waisean at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks James. I've got an IC-746 (already 100W on 2), and my club mate who is likely to be roving with me has an IC-7000 so we've got a decent start to radios. We can also get up on 222 FM if need be. Whatever yagis we don't have or don't purchase by then, we can fill in with WA5VJB cheap yagis, I've looked at them before and they seem pretty 
> 
> Thanks for the tip on RoverStatus. I don't think we'll have APRS, but twitter is something I do use so that's an awesome tool for the arsenal. It looks like it needs to be side loaded if I use the android app, which is fine, or I can just tweet it by hand. There's a handful of big contest stations around, so I'll try and make sure they know where we are.
> 
> I have both a trailer hitch and a roof rack, and I intend on making use of them best I can.
> 
> Thanks,
> Sean WA1TE
> 
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 11:51 PM, James Duffey <jamesduffey at comcast.net> wrote:
> Sean - You wrote:
> 
> >> I've been looking at what it would take to put together a Rover up here in
> >> Massachusetts. I've noticed there aren't many out there in this area. Is
> >> there a reason beyond lack of interest? The mountains in New England make
> >> things tough, but also give great vantages.
> >>
> >> I'm still trying to figure out things like power and mounting antennas, but
> >> before I go spending money or building things I just wanted to know if we
> >> had no rovers in the area because of some limitations I was unaware of.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Sean WA1TE
> >>
> 
> Living in New Mexico, I don’t pretend to know much about roving in New England. But I do know about roving in general and what is required for success.
> 
> As a rover, you need a lot of stations to work at each grid you move to. This requires Multi-Multi stations, Multi-limited stations, serious SOHP stations and serious SOLP stations who are on most, if not all of the contest. I think that there are a lot of those in New England. So the stage is set for a successful rove. Why aren’t there more rovers in New England? I can only guess; It is hard work to rove, particularly in congested areas, it is not cheap to rove, one can easily get burned out roving, activity can be low in contests not occurring in the month of June, and there are others.
> 
> I think that the most important thing in roving is planning operating locations. Start the contest near a major VHF/UHF population center, preferably a location that is close to a grid boundary or 4 grid convergence. That way you can give lots of fixed stations a grid quickly, move to a different grid quickly, give them more grids, and then move to other grids you can get to without spending a lot of time traveling. That usually means north to south. Planning a route and distributing it to active stations will help a lot, as well as running an APRS pinger or something like RoverStatus so that stations know where you are when.
> 
> I wouldn’t let all this discourage you. I don’t know your situation, but if you are planning a rove, I suggest you start with what you have. If you have one of those DC to Daylight rigs, like an IC-706, start with it. Antennas are straightforward, If you don’t have any, I recommend the WA5VJB easy Yagis as they have good performance and are easily built. If you have a trailer hitch and roof rack, you can mount a mast on the trailer hitch and support it with a cross member on the roof rack. In most states 13”6” is the maximum height allowed for vehicles and you should use as much of that as you are comfortable with.
> 
> The key to success in VHF contesting in general and roving in particular, is to be loud on two. If 6 isn’t open, 2M is where most QSOes start. QSY the stations from there. You should be able to pick up a 150 Watt 2M amp for $1/watt. It  will be a big help if you are not running much power on two. After you are loud on two, I suggest investing in 222MHz. There isn’t a lot of 222MHz activity and if you are equipped with 222MHz, you will be desirable. Stations will look for you. It will help.
> 
> Start with what you have, improve on it if you like roving. If yoiu can find a rover in your area, try to contact him and pick his or her brain.
> 
> If you have any other questions, let me know. I hope others have suggestions. Oh yes, it helps to have a driver or second op. Operating in motion helps a lot.
> 
> Now, tell me about those mountains in MA. I live at 6900 ft asl. :^)=. - Duffey KK6MC
>