[NLRS] 10GHz 1st Weekend comments

[Doug Reed]

Greetings!

I haven't even moved my equipment out of the car, nor have I looked at 
the logs. Haven't had the time or the ambition. After hauling it in and 
out of the car for two days, I haven't wanted to touch it...

I did thoroughly enjoy myself. But it was definitely one of those "sure 
glad its over" kind of things. I do wish we had made some arrangements 
to make the unique Q's with the people who were not able to join in the 
EN24 Rove.... A few more points for everyone and nobody completely left 
out......

In my opinion, the split group rover technique did exactly what it was 
supposed to by overlapping the travel and operating times. The times it 
worked perfectly was when the first team was done making Q's and was 
ready to travel when the second team arrived. That represents the 
maximum saving of travel time. We approached the ideal a few times but 
couldn't sustain it when sites became harder to find or signal quality 
was down.

I need to thank everyone who strained their ears to pick me up out of 
the noise for another Q. I know I was the weakest station in the rover 
pack but I only missed a few Q's because of lack of signal strength. 
Most of the time you could pull me out. I always tried to peak my dish 
as well as possible and then lock it down for the Q's. And I hope my 
peaking technique improved over the weekend. I think I was doing better 
on Sunday but I can't be sure. I know that Glen was consistently 
stronger on Sunday than he was on Saturday. Good job of peaking Glen!

Regarding the second weekend, I'd naturally like to maximize our scores 
for the contest. If we do almost as well the second weekend, we'll have 
a whole bunch of scores over 80k and a few over 100k. If we can keep our 
average distance up and increase the Q rate, we might have a bunch of 
people over 100k points. I'd like to see that.... Although I don't know 
what we could do to improve on it for next year.....<g>

If we go back to EN24, we have to avoid the grids we've already used or 
change all the people in the rover pack. That shouldn't be impossible 
but it could be time consuming. We would certainly know what to expect 
when we get there.....

Regarding the RRV rove, I haven't particularly given it any thought. 
I'll probably just go with the herd. But Bruce and Glenn showed that it 
was easy to just drive up and down the freeway stopping at an occasional 
exit ramp. And I will admit to feeling we should do the RRV for the 
second weekend to better support the northern guys.

Looking at an online map, it looks like Fargo is about 80 miles from 
Sissiton and the Canadian border is roughly 140 miles north of Fargo. 
Last week our Q's were from 80 to 225 km. That would say we start maybe 
40-50 miles north of Sissiton and go north from there? Where are the 
other teams going to be? How easy will they be to work? If there is a 
rover group working their way down from the border, it could get 
interesting coordinating our stops so we can work each other at each 
stop.....

I guess my main question has to be what to do if Q's are getting weaker 
and hard to complete. How do we move off the freeway so we can change 
direction and make Q's again? That could be an important detail.

This gives us something to discuss at the next breakfast if it isn't all 
worked out before then....

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.