[NLRS] RE: [BC'ers] K9ILT/R CQWWVHF Very long.

[Don Buska]

Tim and Pat,

An excellent story of your adventures.  Great fun!  Regarding your
"Coyote Roadhouse" story with the numerous inquires about the antenna's.
I always felt it would be a good idea to have a stack of prepared
brochures to hand out to those who question "What's all the antennas
for?".  With your wonderful ability to write of your CQWWVHF adventure
you might just be the person to create such a document.  Not the stale
ARRL type of "This is Ham Radio" stuff, but a more entertaining document
which presents real stories of those "Close Encounter" types, hi.

I should talk since I just got the Hygain HF "wacker" back on the trunk
of my little Saturn SL-2.  My last one broke off a year ago in Ohio on
my way to the Antique Wireless Association conference in Rochester NY.
Somewhere on the roadside in Ashtabula, Ohio sits a Hygain HF antenna
with a 40 meter coil, hi.  Those darn things only have the 3/8" brass
bolt at the bottom and after a period of rocking in the wind the bolt
fatigues and breaks.  My new installation has two small guy supports
made from weedwacker line.  Now it doesn't rock when driving down the
road.  So hopefully this antenna will make the trip to NY next month
AOK.  Anyway I digress, that antenna doesn't look threatening on a big
suburban, but on a little Saturn it draws some looks.  So maybe I need
to prepare a questioners brochure too!  God forbid I add VHF/UHF/SHF
antennas to the Saturn!

73

Don N9OO
Kenosha, WI

-----Original Message-----
From: badgercontesters-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:badgercontesters-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of
aduhawk at comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:14 PM
To: nlrs at mailman.qth.net
Cc: badgercontesters at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [BC'ers] K9ILT/R CQWWVHF Very long.

It's has taken a couple of weeks for us to get this together, but here
is our report.

This year we thought that we would go north through the Cheese Curtain
and run some Wisconsin grids.  We usually run in the south central and
western part of the state, but in order to do something a little
different, we thought that a rove along the Lake Michigan shore would be
fun.

We took a scouting trip over the July 4th weekend, found a couple of
good looking rover spots and had some fun in Port Washington, Cedarburg,
and Manitowoc.  We decided that Upper Lake Park in Port Washington would
give us a great shot over the lake into Michigan, Indiana, and maybe
even Ohio and Ontario.   It's a really pretty spot with a great view and
plenty of room to turn around.  We poked around the lighthouse and St.
Mary's Church.  Even though I tried to convince Pat that antique stores
aren't open on the weekends in Wisconsin it didn't work, so we made a
few visits to those venues as well.  There was a minor detail that we
didn't know about the third Saturday in July in Port Washington.  IT'S
FISH DAY!

Fish Day is described as the world's largest one-day outdoor fish fry
and a major attraction.  Lot's of blocked off streets, a parade, and an
arts and craft fair at -- you guessed it -- Upper Lake Park!

There was no vehicle access to the park, although throngs of people were
on their way  to see the goods and the classic cars on display.  So, we
lost our high spot. All the way up from EN61 I had been rehearsing:
"Who's the VE3?" "Would the W8 try it again please."
So we had to find a different spot.  We kept as close to the lake as we
could, and pretty soon we were ar a dead end next to a field.  There
were trees between us and the lake...and all those W8s and VE3s, but it
was time to par-tay.

We ran into N9UX/R with a couple of minutes to go.  He was in EN53, and
he said that we didn't have much of a signal on 2.  Well, he didn't
either, so I didn't think much of it.  At the stroke of 1800Z we
exchanged reports on 2 and headed to 6.  He had a booming signal
there...kind of odd.  It's usually the other way around.  Oh well, I had
checked the 2 meter beam out on the analyzer before we left.  It was
perfect.  So was the 6 meter loop.  It must have been conditions, or a
problem at N9UX/R.  It couldn't be us.

We stayed in our spot for twenty more minutes.  We weren't hearing
anything on 2, so we decided to start toward Manitowoc in EN64.  We
would travel through EN63 for awhile, so we were bound to make more Qs.
On the way, KB9VQC called us on 6 with a huge signal.  We exchanged
reports and moved to 2.  Nothing.  Not a peep.  We had no luck CQing as
we went north to Two Rivers and a nice park on the lake shore with a
nice open shot east and south.  We found W9GA, but he was weak on 2,
dynamite on 6.  We easily completed with K2DRH on 6, but had to go to CW
on 2.  Something was wrong.  I pulled out the analyzer and took the
LMR400 off the amp and plugged it into the analyzer.  When I turned it
on the needle slammed against the peg.  Hmmmm, that's what happens when
there's no antenna on the analyzer.  

Pat knows the drill, she climbed up on the roof of the car and did a
visual inspection. (Pat has less of an "impact" than I do on the roof.)
She wiggled the connector and moved the balun around a little bit.  I
turned on the analyzer again and it was working! SWR of 1.2:1! Yippee! I
attached the coax to the amp and went back to work.  We managed some
EN61Qs, but then everything went dead again.  Six meters was working
fine, but the band wasn't open.  We decided to push on to our hotel in
Sturgeon Bay out on the Door Peninsula.  We were only about an hour
away, and we could find a shady spot in the parking and lot tear it all
apart.

We enjoyed the rest of the ride and checked in at our hotel.  I took the
coax off the amp and everything became clear.  We use a 20 foot run of
LMR400 with Ns at both ends.  The beam has an N connector, but the amp
uses an SO239.  I use an adapter at the amp.  I didn't like the strain
that was being put on the coax by the bend I had to make to reach the
back of the amp, so minutes before we left in the morning I ran inside
and picked up an N to SO239 elbow adapter.  When I took it off the amp
to start the teardown the adapter fell apart in my hands.  With the coax
straight into the analyzer, all was well.  Pat took the pieces out of my
hand and walked over to the trash can.  Bend, schmend, it worked! 

We were off to Bailey's Harbor and EN65.  On the DeLorme, it looked like
there were some nice spots with a good shot from about 60 to 190
degrees.  We went north of town a bit and drove along Moonlight Bay.
There was a nice opening in the trees and an empty spot we could back
into on the inland side.  We worked lots of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana
and Michigan stations, including K8DOG/R in EN74.  A little later, even
though there were lots of "don't even think about entering" signs we
drove out onto what amounts to a causeway that leads to a lighthouse.
We made some more Qs.  Six meters was stilt dead, but we were working
250 miles with no problem.  Our best DX was K9ZO in EN50.

Activity started to slack off, and we were pretty hungry, so we headed
off in such of food.  The Coyote Roadhouse was our next adventure.  It
was a nice little place on the side of the road.  It has an outside
porch and the joint was jumpin'.  The only place we could park was in
the front, up against the outside porch.  Anyone who has roved knows
what came next.

Do you remember the Spielberg Stare? Like in Close Encounters of the
third Kind when all of the scientists stared at the space ship and the
aliens with sort of glazed-over expression? Well that was just like
everyone on that patio.  And we only had two antennas! We run a Radio
Shack tripod u-bolted to a Yakima roof rack.  For this two band event we
had a modest 5 element 2 meter beam and a KB6KQ 6 meter loop on top.
It's about 12 feet tall all together.  We should go back in September.
Wait till they see antennas for seven bands!

What's that for?  "There's a bear with a radio collar that's causing
some trouble.  We're helping the DNR track him down."  They bought it.
We were seated on the deck and took a look a the menu.  A waitress ran
out, stood next to our SUV and had her picture taken.  Pretty soon a
fellow who had been sitting inside, at the bar came out to chat.  He sat
right down at our table and told us that he had been selected by the
group inside to find out about our antennas.  I asked him what kind of
story that he wanted to take back inside.  I offered storm chasers,
wildlife trackers, and since War of the Worlds had just opened I told
him that we didn't want to start a panic, but...

Then I said, seriously, there's an amateur radio contest on this
weekend.  We participate as a rover station, driving from point to
point, making contacts with home stations and other rovers.  He looked
me in the eye and said "Nah!" "My dad's a ham.  His antenna is a
whip-thing on a magnet."  "What you have there isn't ham radio."  I
offered the bear-with-the-radio-collar story.  He liked that better.

We bagged it for the night and were on the road at 1400Z running down
the peninsula, heading off for EN54, 53 and 52. We worked N9LR/9 in EN56
a couple of times.  Larry and I used to work each other when he was
WB9MSV and I was NC9F.  He did my VUCC cards for the bottom four bands.
He has been going to the UP for years.  I was never able to hear him
from home in EN51, so it was good to finally make contact.  Traffic on
route 41 was intense, so we got off and looked for smaller routes to
head south on.  We drove through the Horicon Marsh...not the smartest
thing to do if you're looking for high spots but the flora and fauna was
interesting and it was a very nice day.

Six meters finally opened up when we were in Oconomoc and we made a few
Qs.  Signals were very loud and then very gone.  Pat said "I guess
that's why they call it sporadic."  As 2100Z approached we were in
Crystal Lake on Route 14.  We pulled into a shopping area and spent the
final twenty mintues in the Wall mart parking lot, rotating and making
contacts.

Our score, a puny 7K, but we had a lot more fun than that indicates.  If
it hadn't been for Fish Day, and that bad adapter we would have made a
much better start.  Wait until next year!

Thanks for everybody who rode along with us and helped us enjoy the
scenery in our favorite way.   We will be gone during the UHF test, so
wee'll see you all in September. 73, Tim K0PG and Pat K9ILT "The Colvins
of the Upper Midwest"
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