[VHFcontesting] K1SIG/R January VHF Plans

[Sean Waite]

The K1SIG rover is headed out for our first January trip. We're going to be
running a different setup this time - loops, not beams, and lower power.
We're hoping to make up for that by attempting 14 grids. I have no idea how
this will go, it is more than twice what we've done in the past. Worst case
we'll do no worse than our normal fixed efforts, best case  we'll give K1DS
a run for his money (shoot for the moon, right?)

We aren't 100% of where we'll be when. Much of this will be by ear as we go
along.

So the plan!

We'll start in the SW corner of FN43 - Bow/Henniker/Hopkinton area. Short
stop, moving on quickly.
We'll be travelling down I-93 from here.
4pm Saturday - FN42, Boston. Perhaps a short stop near the I-93/I-90
intersection.
We'll take I-90 to I-395.
6pm Saturday - NW corner of FN41. We may have a short stop in this area,
unlikely for long.
We'll continue down I-395 to I-95
9pm Saturday - Stop near Fairfield in FN31.
We'll take I-95 into NYC. We'll stop at Orchard Beach off of I-95 in the
hopes of working as much of that grid as we can.
We'll come off of I-95 onto I-80 and proceed to Hazleton, PA through FN20
and FN21. There may be a stop along here somewhere.
Midnight Saturday - Stop in Hazleton for the evening. We'll be in FN10,
probably with some operation here.
In the morning we'll proceed to a quick stop just North of Hazleton in FN11
- probably around 9:30am
Next up is travel up I-81 back into FN21.
This is where we diverge. Weather permitting, we'll continue up I-81 to
Round Top Picnic Area in Endicott, NY, FN12. We should be here around noon.
We'll continue up I-81 to Syracuse, stopping in FN13 to work that grid.
We'll be here around 3pm.
>From Syracuse, we'll proceed across 90 to Rt 29, cutting into FN23.
We hope to stop at the Fulton County Visitor's center in FN23. Expected to
be here around 6pm.
We'll take a brief stop in the SW corner of FN33 before cutting back down
onto Rt 9. Probably around 7pm we'll be here.
Our last major stop will probably be Hogback Mountain in FN32. 9pm
estimated operating time.
We'll finish the weekend driving back into FN42 to Merrimack NH.

In poor weather, we'll travel up I-81 out of Hazleton and cut across I-84
through PA to I-87 into New York. Expect to be in the Newburgh NY area
around lunch time.
We'll move up the FN21/FN31 line on I-87.
Brief stop right in FN22 on I-87. approximately 2pm.
Fulton County Visitor's center, at around 4pm, FN23
We'll dip into FN22 again if necessary after this.
Around 6-7pm we'll be in Saratoga Springs FN33
Across Rt 9, we'll stop in FN32 Hogback, should arrive around 9pm.
>From here we'll proceed to FN42 to close out the night.


As you can tell, the timetable is a bit tight. We have a little more slack
on Sunday, but we'll still try and keep to it. We'll be able to give out 6
digit grids

The plan is to run Unlimited. We'll have a dedicated operator pretty much
at all times, with a second op in the car and a driver who may also be put
onto the radio. We'll be spotting on APRS and the cluster via roverstatus
as much as we can. We'll be able to sked to some degree, with a second op
in the car and only one station we'll be able to coordinate better. My
phone number is 978-496-7053, SMS is preferred but phone calls can work as
well.

Microwave ops - we will have an extremely limited setup on 902 and 1296. I
have transverters and an IF rig zip tied into a milk crate, each band only
has 2-3W and we'll only be running 2 element HB9CV beams. I would love to
hand out contacts on these bands to everyone we possibly can, but given the
station limitations and time crunch it just won't be possible. If you're
very close to the route I listed above and there's a good spot with a clear
shot to you, please let me know and we'll see what we can do. If we can
work a few grids over the weekend on these two I'll be thrilled. I'd like
to get some better beams, but we're basically out of time (and...the roving
budget is already a little higher than expected). 5-10 miles with a clear
shot should be doable, maybe more. Next time we'll have some longer yagis.
Weather may also make this rough, the entire microwave station (radios,
transverters, antennas and ME) have to get out of the car to work them.
Hopefully it'll behave.

We'll also have the bottom 4 on halos, sideband mostly but if you're
willing to trudge along with us we can bang out a CW contact. We're not
great at CW, but we'll do our best.

FM ops, we'll also have mobiles running 2, 1.25 and 70 on short verticals.

If we're working a lot of stations, we'll try and hold off crossing the
gridlines. We're doing a lot of skirting along the borders and corners of
grids, so keep an ear out for what grid we're calling and an eye out for
what grid we're spotting in. We'd love to work everyone in as many grids as
possible. If you reach out to me and think we can work, we'll try our best.
Precise skeds will be hard, but I'll keep a list of who is where and try
and reach out if possible when we're in the area.

Good luck next weekend, hope to see many of you on the air.

73,
Sean Waite, WA1TE and K1SIG/R