[NLRS] Jan Contest Notes

[John Hoaglun]

What a weird contest.

We started out in EN21, 22, 31, 32.  What happened to the locals?  I
expected to hear about 10 stations in the local grids..... all that I can
say is that it was very quite except for the rovers... there were 4 of us
within about 60 miles of each other.... 3 of us less than 5 miles apart.

I did manage to bag a couple of mults while down there, but otherwise the
Des Moines/Ames area was almost a bust.

KM0T was very hard to work with his tower lowered a bit because of the
extreme winds. The winds were in the 20-30+ mph range in central Iowa. Thank
goodness there wasn't any snow on the ground or we would not have been able
to operate from down there as it would have been a complete white.  I got
12.5mph gas mileage due to the high winds and I should be in the 24-26
range.

Just south of the Clear Lake/Mason City area was the magic line on the map
that allowed us to finally be able to work into the Twin Cities on a regular
basis.

I had set my goal for the contest around 400 q's based upon past experience
and activity in the Des Moines area. Oh well.... goals were made to broken.
:)

The new van was great roving compared to my SUV... the extra room made
things much more comfortable. Operating while mobile moving grid to grid
made huge difference in our score.

I was surprise how many fellow rovers were on the road.... it was pretty
cool to hear everyone.

We ended up with 327 q's for a claimed score of 30,420 with about 21.5 hours
of operating time during the contest.

I will write up everything in a few days and post it on my website along
with the pictures from the trip. I will post the link when things are
completed.

Thanks to W0JT, W0AMT, KM0T, N0DQS, KT8O, K0SHF and especially my rover
partner for K0KOE. Everyone played a huge part in keeping my energy level
up.... I have been building and planning since the last contest in Sept.

73.... I need to start planning for the next contest. Hmmm... maybe it's
time to get on the air with 1296MHz......     :)



John Hoaglun - MCSE
KC0LBT - EN35
http://www.hoaglun.com