[VHFcontesting] From N6NB - A roving for seniors, not just beginners

James Duffey jamesduffey at comcast.net
Thu Mar 10 21:41:00 EST 2016


N6NB asked me to post this for him as he cannot post directly to VHFContesting. I am happy to do that for him.- Duffey

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Thanks to James Duffey for his analysis of how the new assistance 
rule is working out.  What he says matches what I've observed as 
well.  Well done!

I also want to follow up on what Duffey said about the 10-band 
"antenna-free" station shown in the QST article about the September, 
2015 VHF contest.

Duffey says having 10 bands (including antennas) in one small package 
that will fit on a car's passenger seat would be good for beginners.

That's true, but it was designed for the other end of the spectrum:  senior 
citizens who may have 50+ years experience in amateur radio.  Some of 
us are now finding it difficult to climb a ladder and then hoist anything 
bulky onto a car roof.  Climbing a ladder while carrying a "toolbox" 
station aloft seems much harder than it was just a few years ago.

So I started building stations with 10 bands in a single package that fits 
on a car seat, including antennas.  The maiden voyage for one of those 
stations was last September.   A photo of it ended up in QST, but the 
caption isn't quite right.  It said the #3, #4 and #5 finishers in the 
rover category where using those compact stations.

Actually, only the #4 and #5 rovers were using them.  The #3 finisher was 
W6TE, using his often-photographed red Dodge diesel truck.  It very 
definitely has external antennas--big ones.  The point I was trying to 
make in my September soapbox item was that when W6TE roved 
alongside two stations using the car-seat packages, they worked 
the same distant stations on the same bands as W6TE did.

This is not to say that the "antenna-free" stations perform as well as 
W6TE's setup with its long Yagis and loop Yagis.  Of course, the 
WA5VJB PC-board log periodic Yagi that I'm using only delivers a 
few dB of gain.  However, this particular model works on five bands 
(902 through 5.7 GHz).  The LPY, plus a small dish, can yield respectable 
performance in a package that fits on a car seat.  The "rubber duck" 
antennas used for 6, 2, 222 and 432 are admittedly a compromise.
It's also feasible to use mobile "mag mount" whips on the lower bands 
without losing much portability.  Then the car-seat antennas
are only used on 902 and up.

The whole point of this is to still be able to rove when hoisting a "tool 
box" setup onto a roof platform has become too difficult.

The final section of the roving page on N6NB.com now has a descrip-
tion of the smallest 10-band station-on-a-car-seat.   Within a day or 
so I hope to add a section with photographs of a still-newer 10-band 
station that also fits on a car seat.  That one uses DEMI transverters 
rather than DB6NT hardware, so it's a little larger than the one shown in 
QST.  But it's still small enough for one old guy to carry it and place it on 
a car seat.

73, Wayne, N6NB


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