[COham] The Great Colorado Grid Run

[Bob Witte K0NR]

The ARRL June VHF Contest (June 9-11) is a great opportunity to try out 
your gear for the VHF and higher bands. See the complete information on 
the contest at http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2007/june-vhf.html

Under the theory that activity breeds more activity on the VHF bands, I 
am proposing a coordinated effort to activate all Colorado grids during 
the ARRL June VHF contest. This effort would collectively raise the 
scores of everyone in the Rocky Mountain region as we all have more 
grids to work locally. More importantly, this would be a lot of fun!

How difficult is this to pull off? There are 16 VHF grids in Colorado. 
If you are not familiar with the grid system, take a look at the 
Colorado vhf grid map at http://www.k0nr.com/rwitte/vhf_grids.html 

The usual front range VHF stations would have DN70, DM79 and DM78 
covered. There are a couple of rover stations already planning to head 
out east and hit DN80, DM89, DM88, DM87. DM77 will also be activated by 
one of the rovers. On the Western slope, N0KE is usually on the air from 
DM69. With a little encouragement, we could probably get a Grand 
Junction station or two on in DM58. This would still leave DM57, DM67, 
DM68, DN50 and DN60 open. There may be a local or two we could get on 
the air or maybe we need another rover to cover those grids. This idea 
seems to be within capture range.

I think the minimum station should be active on 2M and 6M, with decent 
Yagi antennas and running 100W or more. This would help facilitate QSOs 
across the state. Also, a good 6M opening would be a nice addition (not 
sure who is in charge of propagation this year :-). More bands would be 
better, of course, especially from the rare grids.

We especially need stations to participate from the western grids in 
Colorado (DM57, DM58, DM59, DN50) near Cortez, Delta, Grand Junction and 
Rangely. These can be fixed stations, portable or rovers.

If you are interested in participating in this effort and can operate 
from one of the more rare grids, contact Bob K0NR (bob at k0nr.com). To 
keep up to date on the status of this effort, subscribe to the Rocky 
Mountain VHF Plus email list at
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/rmvhf

If you are new to VHF contests, check out "How to Work a VHF Contest" at 
http://www.k0nr.com/rwitte/vhf_contest.html

73, Bob K0NR