[NLRS] N0UK/R UHF Contest MINI Rove

[Chris Cox, N0UK]

Summary: You don't have to have a Hummer to be a Rover!

Other than during past 10GHz Cumulatives, this was the first time I had 
ever roved in a contest.

Strapped my (c/t)rusty old Jaybeam MBM-48 Multibeam and homebrew 23cms 
loop yagi to Alice's roof-rack, stuffed the dish in the boot, and headed 
for the hills such as they were.

I managed to active five grids this time.  It could have been more but my 
son's girlfriend heads off to college next week, so there was a sending 
off party for her to attend last night.

The tri-band station worked pretty well except I experienced some 
horrendous EMC issues on 23cms.  I literally had to hold the microphone in 
a very critical spot a couple of inches from the i/f rig and then position 
my other hand close to but not touching the antenna changeover realy to 
suppress the rig from taking off at full power output under no drive 
conditions.  It all worked beautifully in the shack and with a dummy load 
attached in the car, just not with the antenna connected :-(  Even so, 
doing the awkward actions above I did manage 6 Qs in three grids on that 
band.  I decided that I was wasting too much time in those antics so I 
concentrated on 70 and 3 cms for most of today.  Having the glass roof 
really didn't help here.

The Multibeam on 70cms performed incredibly well, even though it was only 
about 8 inches above the roof.  Best DX on that band was from EN24wb to 
EN01pl at just under 300 miles or 472 kms.

Ended up with a total of 61 Qs, 23 multipliers (18+5) and a total score of 
7107 points.

I should be able to upload some photos later to the gallery.
http://gallery.britishcaranddriver.com/gallery/UHF-2006

73  Chris Cox, N0UK  email: chrisc at chris.org or chrisc at BritishCarAndDriver.Com
                                              or chris at SotaMINIs.Com
  Home Page: http://WWW.BritishCarAndDriver.Com   http://www.pingjockey.net