[VHFcontesting] Rover for June VHF

Mark Spencer mark at alignedsolutions.com
Sun May 6 18:19:41 EDT 2018


Jarred's comments seem to align with my experience.

I typically rove with a 1/4 wave whip for 50 MHz on the roof of my crew cab truck.  (When I stop I setup tripod masts for the beams.)  I've never measured the overall height of my truck with the 1/4 whip but expect it is approx 12 feet.   The whip is fairly thin at the top and has a shock spring at the bottom so there hasn't been any real drama the few times I have hit low hanging branches at low speeds.

For travel on back roads with lots of low hanging branches I take the whip down if needed.  I drove more or less the whole way to the arctic circle and back from CN89 (Vancouver) with the whip in place with no significant issues.  I even made a few QSO's from out of the way grids along the way.

The experiences of others may differ from mine.

All the best

Mark S
VE7AFZ 

mark at alignedsolutions.com
604 762 4099

> On May 6, 2018, at 2:57 PM, Jarred Jackson <Jarred.Jackson at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Detrick,
> 
> 
> 
> Great to hear you are looking to head out as a rover. My total fixed height is about 11’5”. I recommend staying under 12’ for backroad bridges as well as tree branches in residential neighborhoods. I came to this conclusion by reviewing previous postings on the VHFContesting archive and looking up posted bridge heights in my area of the state. I still pull some leaves off the tree when I leave my own driveway. Also note that if you have a height of 12’ and come up to a 11’7” bridge posting, all is not lost. Check out the shape of the bridge. You will likely see where you can pass under it with plenty of margin (though it may be in the center of the bridge or the other lane). The posting is for the worst case location.
> 
> 
> 
> Good Luck and make sure you are paying attention to where your population areas will be (by looking at previous contest results on the ARRL website and rover plans posted in the VHFContesting archives).
> 
> 
> 
> Jarred
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com> on behalf of Detrick Merz <detrick at merzhaus.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 3:55:40 PM
> To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Rover for June VHF
> 
> Howdy Folks,
> 
> A few of us are planning to try June VHF as rovers. Never done VHF
> contesting before, and obviously not rover. But it sounds like fun so we're
> going to give it a go. Planning on 6m, 2m, & 70cm. Omnis in the bed of the
> truck, some yagis for stop-and-shoot. If you care, we're planning two
> rovers (two trucks), 2 ops in each, running limited class. I'm sure we'll
> cause all kinds of problems for each other doing it this way, but we'll
> learn a lot too. And camping is more fun with friends.
> 
> Yesterday I finished up the base for securing a mast into the truck bed.
> The mast tubing recesses into this base and gets guy lines from near the
> top to 4 existing anchor points in the bed.
> 
> The question of the day is: how tall is too tall for going down the road?
> The truck bed is 3' off the ground, and the tubing as it is is 10'. Is 13'
> too tall, should I cut the tubing down to 8'? Should be no problem on major
> roads, but I'm wondering about tree strikes on smaller roads.
> 
> Thanks for any insight,
> 
> -detrick
> K4IZ
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting at contesting.com
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.contesting.com%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fvhfcontesting&data=02%7C01%7C%7C5ecfebcb2673408d778208d5b38b6a7c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636612333719081831&sdata=phGEOpsrJBKb%2F1YSKg9243CuOrypPh37%2BBDbFnMd9gM%3D&reserved=0
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
> 


More information about the VHFcontesting mailing list