[NLRS] KC9BQA EN63ao UHF contest report

[Todd Sprinkmann]

  I just realized I sent contest reports to BC'ers and CVVHF'ers
right after my contest ended @ 7:15am due to t-storms Sunday.
But I never sent anything to NLRS.

  From what I've been reading, it sure sounds like you guys had
some amazing ability to rebound after the incredibly good CSVHFS
conference.  Sounds like a lot of rovers went out and made R III
as interesting as the first two.

  From a BC'ers perspective, we sure were grateful for W9FZ's rove
through SW up to NC Wisconsin.  I swept with Bruce on Saturday,
but the lightning Gods had me off the air for Sunday.  Bruce always
puts out a good signal and is easy to find -- I regret not having gotten
him in 44/54/45/55.  I wonder if finding him up there would have also
led to Q's with NLRS guys who were also looking at him.

  I did write a long soapbox summary and comment at the ARRL
website, so I won't rehash the entire contest here.

  But conditions were very good to the east from about 7-8pm on
on Sat. evening.  Also, KF8QL was louder than loud as he roved
W Mich., directly across the lake from me.  Between keeping track
of Bruce and then hearing strong callers to the east, I really didn't
have any time to look north thru west.  (Man, changing all those bands
thru 2304 takes up a lot of time!)  By the time I looked north and west
@ 9:15pm, it became clear conditions to my NW weren't very good
at all.

  The 3 NLRS'ers I completed with on 222 and 432 only were W0GHZ,
N0VZJ and WA0VPJ/R in EN33.  I can tell you that Gary and Vince
were down from what their normal strengths would be.  Yet when I
talked with N9TZL who was in EN52 just south of the WI/ILL state
line, he said he had completed with K0AWU not too long ago.  So go
figure... at any rate, I did call CQ persistently to the west thru north 
at
intervals well into the late night hours.  Then I gave up when I saw the
storms blossom on radar toward 1-2am.

  I'm still eagerly awaiting a contest where I work more than 2-4 NLRS
stations.  It's funny because I almost always work a few.  But they
rarely are the same old regulars.  I should go thru the contest logs
sometime and list who all I've worked out of NLRS-land.  You'd be
surprised.  Sometime we'll make it click and we'll all catch each other
on the right half hour.

  Looking forward to September on 50 thru 2304 (thanks again Gary)

  73,
  Todd   KC9BQA  EN63ao      40 miles north of Milwaukee