[NLRS] W9FZ/R Jan VHF Sweeps travelogue...(long)
Bruce Richardson
[email protected]
Sun, 1 Feb 2004 13:50:21 -0600
Holy Cow! What a fun weekend!
This year I chose to activate EN-34 and the eight grids that surround it. I
highly recommend this set of grids to anyone looking for a lot of QSO's and
fun!
A few days prior to the contest, I was able to load the radios into the
vehicle in a heated garage. That was a nice improvement over some years
where I've had to kneel in snow while working in the opened passenger door
hooking up wiring. I drove to the farm in EN-43 to pick up my antenna rack.
This year I was able to put the rack on and lash it down in the barn rather
than out in the wind like some years--again an improvement.
I hit the road about 1030am from the farm bound for the grid intersection
west of Winona, MN. I wished I'd left about 45 minutes earlier to reduce my
stress. I got to the intersection basically right at the start of the
contest. I put up the 6m dipole and got to work logging my first Q at
1909Z. It was a sunny day but the temp was about 12 and there was a pretty
stiff breeze. I started in EN44 at a road intersection recommended by KC0P.
It's a fine site and I also recommend it.
Right from the start, it was so nice to have many stations looking for me
and eager to work on multiple bands. So many times throughout the weekend,
once I would get established in a new grid, the QSO rate was incredible!
This is why we do this. The regions ops were SO smooth at quickly
exchanging info and moving up through the bands. Often 5 and 6 QSO's per
minute would occur--what a rate!
Mel, KC0P/R arrived at this location and made a 10GHz possible.
I moved on to EN43 and the EN33 which is about 4 miles east of the Amish
Truck Stop near St Charles, MN. Mel, KC0P/R dropped by and we completed
some more 10G QSO's. I picked up about 48Qpts and 3 unique grids because
Mel dropped by. It was good to see him and see his set-up. It was EN33
where I got my only contacts to the east picking up K2YAZ on two bands, N9DG
on four, and W9GA on two. Most years I'm able to bang away to the east,
southeast, and south and pick up a bunch more grids.
Finally around 10pm local I knocked off in EN33 and moved on. I had been
running behind all day. For EN34, I intended to drive all the way to near
Owatonna and just operate from somewhere near the interstate. Well, looking
at the map, it occurred to me that I wouldn't be on the air till near
midnight, so I went to a nearby location, again recommended by KC0P, much
closer to St Charles and got back on the air about 1045pm. I activated EN34
till about 1am before I knocked off and got under way. My original plan was
to get a motel in Mapleton, but at this hour of night, I knew I would have
to make do with Rochester or Owatonna. As I was taking down the 6m dipole,
I jumped down off my little step ladder and unfortunately yanked the coax
that goes to the 6m dipole and it completely ripped the SO-239 fitting off
the dipole. Great! What to do?
So I drove on Hwy 12 to Rochester. I was getting sleepy and almost did a
motel there. But it meant that I'd still have a heck of a drive the next
morning. So I mushed on to Owatonna. There I found a Microtel that had
room. As you'll recall, it was REAL cold at night. So I unloaded essential
things and took my tools and the dipole into the hotel room. Then I
proceeded to carefully rewire and resolder the SO-239 fitting to the dipole.
(Actually, I have little copper wire pigtails coming off the SO-239 that are
trapped to the aluminum bars of the dipole with little hose clamps.) I
shined everything up with emery cloth. I finally got to bed about 3:45am.
I planned to be up at 6am. When the alarm went off, I decided that what the
heck, I'll just be late at the first grid and rolled over and went back to
sleep. By 6:45am there were lots of car doors slamming in the parking lot
as other people got underway for their travels. So I got up and got going.
I ended up about a half hour late at EN23 and remained late throughout the
day on Sunday. I had a good time down at the Beaufort grid corner and
signals into the cities were pretty good. It was tempting to stay there for
EN24 but I had some tips on a new place to try near the Winstead corner of
EN24 (Thanks ZQ!) I had a lovely drive up Hwy 169 north of Mankato. It was
still real cold and the southeasterly wind gave me a bit of a tailwind. At
Henderson, I took Hwy 19 West till I got to County 11 (which was gravel at
that point) to go northward. At Green Isle I got on 5/25 and continued
northward till I stepped over on 212 to County 9.
I had a good time at the EN24/EN25 corner with good signals into the cities.
1296 was playing very well. I picked up K0JO in EN26 on two bands from
EN25. I could hear somebody working EN17 but couldn't bag the grid for me.
I left EN25 late and the original plan was to drive to the EN35/45 corner
north of Menomonie, WI. Well, as I got into the outskirts of the Twin
Cities, signals were so loud, I decided to whip over to the Ridgeway/Stinson
Blvd site as my EN35 location. Mel, KC0P/R was there and I was glad to work
him for yet more Qpts (including 10GHz). I didn't want to QRM Mel, but he
said he had been there for a couple of hours and was about to move on. From
Ridgeway, I was able to work KT8O, WB0LJC, KC0P/R, and W0GHZ on 10GHz by
bouncing off of downtown. Thrilling in the cold! I had to run back to the
vehicle to log the QSO's. I had high noise levels on 1296 for some reason.
Wasn't too bad on 903. But activity levels were high.
On my way out of town on I94 to the east, I whipped into the SunRay Bowl
parking lot to work N0HJZ on 3 bands from EN34 but it also gave me the
opportunity to work WB0LJC and W0GHZ for more 10GHz QSO's. I was getting
fatigued at this point and wasn't as patient as I should have been.
Finally, I got on the road headed eastbound to EN45. I got driving at about
0200Z and it took an hour and 15 minutes to get to my operating location
which left only about 45 minutes to do what I could do. Wow! As you may
have read in my initial note, I was amazed at the QSO rates during that 45
minutes. 63 Q's of strong signals and patient operators cruising through
the bands!
Well, this year had increased activity levels by far. Like others I was
really surprised by the number of operators with several bands! Ya know, in
the old days, I use to commiserate with other rovers like W0ZQ and N0HJZ
about "wouldn't it be nice if there were more stations when we point at the
Twin Cities?". Well, they're here now! I had more QSO's than I've ever
had: 665!!!. I could easily see that the average Qpts per QSO was higher
than I ever remember which means that more operators have the higher bands.
1466 total Qpts!!!! But like others noted, grids were WAY down. Only 55
(+9) for me this year. Last year was 65 (+9or11).
Lowlights: 1. Propagation. There's always a secret hope for a little better
propagation. 2. How I acted, at times, during the contest. I got irritated
a few times during the contest and for that I'm sad and embarrassed. In the
light of day, whatever irritated me during the contest does not warrant any
reaction at all. I'm sorry to all of you who could hear any irritation in my
voice. I've done it before in previous contests and I went into this
contest vowing to avoid getting worked up by anything. I hope I'm
successful in the next one. 3. Travel times/Schedule--you'd think after this
many roves, I could estimate travel times better. I was always behind
schedule which added a stress. My excuse is there were so many Q's to work!
Highlights: 1. All my equipment worked. Had to wait for the 2304 rig to
start working only when I'd get the interior of the car HOT. I'll have to
fix that. 2. Reasonable weather. The bad weather held off. 3. Hooking up
with other rovers such as KC0IYT/R, W0AMT/R, K0NY/R, WD9IGK/R, KC0P/R,
W0IS/R, KM0T/R, K9ILT/R, and K0PG/R. 4. Above all, the most pleasant thing
throughout the whole contest was the fine fixed stations who were looking
for me. Unlike the old days, there used to be just W0ZQ and W0GHZ to carry
to the high bands. Now there were KT8O, N0KP, W0JT, and sometimes K0SHF,
KB9PJL, KB0ZKX and others. It was so nice to move up through the bands
carrying 4, 5 and 6 patient operators along. I know that each of them had
to wait their turn, so I tried to move right along and not keep them waiting
long. Sure, we had to talk fast, but it was amazing what QSO rates it
yielded. As you've heard, both W0GHZ and W0ZQ "clean sweeped" me on 7 bands
in 9 grids! I'm impressed and appreciative of all those Qpts!. I'd like to
make special mention of W0LCP and N0MK who nearly clean sweeped me on the 3
bands that they each had. There were many of you who also made MANY QSO's
with me--thanks! Ya know, a Rover would not stay very busy without fixed
stations to work (except in a grid circling dogpack :-) ). So I'm glad that
all of you were there to give out those 665 QSO's. I stayed busy.
So, you can see the highlights far outweigh the lowlights. I highly
recommend this 9 grid rove to anybody who wants a lot of fun! Next time I
think I'm gonna go to the sticks and try and activate more rare (but fewer)
grids. I know my score will suffer, but I think there are some holes that
need filling for the fixed stations in the area.
Thanks again to all of you! Thanks for reading. Score breakdown below.....
Bruce Richardson - W9FZ
"You heard right. The secret word for tonight is MUD SHARK!" -FZ
W9FZ/R Jan VHF Sweeps 04
Band QSO's PPQ QPts Grids Band Total
50 113 1 113 8 904
144 197 1 197 16 3168
222 83 2 166 7 1162
432 123 2 246 9 2214
903 52 4 208 3 624
1296 60 4 240 5 1200
2304 28 8 224 2 448
10368 9 8 72 5 360
Totals 665 1466 55
grids activated: 9
1466 x 64 = 93824 Grand Total
W9FZ QSO's by Grids activated
Op Time 6 2 222 432 903 1296 2304 10368Total
EN44 2:45 18 23 6 14 6 7 3 1 78
EN43 2:35 9 22 8 14 5 10 4 2 74
EN33 2:30 11 25 13 19 7 9 4 0 88
EN34 3:10 9 27 9 13 6 5 4 2 75
EN23 1:50 10 16 9 11 6 6 3 0 61
EN24 1:45 14 24 10 14 6 6 2 0 76
EN25 1:50 13 20 8 11 5 5 3 0 65
EN35 2:00 16 24 11 15 5 7 3 4 85
EN45 0:44 13 16 9 12 6 5 2 0 63
Totals 19:09 113 197 83 123 52 60 28 9 665