[NLRS] RoverMania - W0JT

[John P. Toscano]

I hope you all had a better time than I did!

Spent many hours assembling my rover station, and other committments 
made me late besides.  First time setup with this vehicle, and some of 
my planning worked out well, and some of it not so well.  Biggest 
problem (I thought) was too much swaying of the main mast because of too 
much play in the trailer hitch cargo carrier that the rotator was 
attached to.  If I pulled the guy ropes tight, the antennas were tipped 
down pretty bad.  Figured I'd have to drive with it that way, then 
loosen the straps at each site.  Due to lack of time, I didn't get to 
fabricate the type of rigid brace system from the roof rack to the 
thrust bearing I had planned on.  Also, seeing how time was against me, 
I simplified the support design and tossed out the idea of pushing up 
the telescoping mast sections at each stop, and went with a fixed-height 
array that topped out at about 10 feet.  (My original plan would have 
let me push up 222 to 20 feet and 432 to 15 feet or thereabouts.)  So I 
figured my setup time in each grid would be about the same or less, even 
with the guy rope problem.

Finally jumped in the vehicle to hit the road, and cound not budge it 
from the end of my driveway.  Something hosed up with the ignition 
switch and security interlock.  Can't start it, can't turn the ignition 
key, can't even put it in neutral, and no, it's not just steering wheel 
torque lock.  Can't move the key from the ACCESSORY position, it's not 
even in the LOCK position.  Getting it towed in to the dealer for 
repairs Monday morning.  Ugggh!

Moved stuff back into the house to try to salvage some contest time.  In 
the process, I lost 222 (for some reason, now putting out only a couple 
of watts instead of 100, and not even W0GHZ could hear me), lost 2304 
(no room on the current home tower for an antenna on that band), and 
lost 10 GHz (surrounded by 50-foot trees and have a 150-foot hill 
between me and downtown).  Uggghhh!

I was physically exhausted after all the setup, teardown, and re-setup, 
not to mention being emotionally drained by the whole business, and I 
decided to get some sleep and work only a few hours of the contest on 
Sunday.

High points of the contest:  managing a 3-band sweep (432/902/1296) with 
W0GHZ, KM0T, and K0SHF;  catching KF0Q/R in EN43 with a couple of 
minutes to go before the end of the contest.

Low points of the contest:  well, after all the bad stuff above, could 
it get any worse?  Oh yeah, there was that rover station in EN35 who was 
so intent on quickly running the bands with someone else that he never 
heard me try to "tail end" on 432, 902, or 1296, even though I heard him 
clear as a bell on all three bands.  Not being able to complete with 
Matt in EN43 on 902 or 1296, only managed 432, and then time ran out.

  Band   QSO's  Points  Grids
------  -----  ------  -----
   222     0       0       0
   432     9      27       5
   902     3      18       2
  1296     4      24       2
  2304     0       0       0
10368     0       0       0
TOTALS   16      69       9     = 621 points

I'll probably upload one or two pics of the dead rovermobile to the ARRL 
"soapbox" tomorrow.

The things we do for entertainment. . .

73 de W0JT