[NLRS] KC0IYT/R June results

[Glen Overby]

RoverLog QSOs by Activated Grid:
Grid	QSOs	Grid	QSOs	Grid	QSOs
EN32	8	EN14	16	EN33	10
EN42	9	EN24	38	EN15	11
EN34	12	

RoverLog Score Summary, Using new rover rules:
Band	QSOs	Value	QSOPts	Mults
50	4	1	4	3
144	32	1	32	9
222	5	2	10	3
432	20	2	40	7
902	11	3	33	4
1.2	10	3	30	4
2.3	6	4	24	4
3.4	7	4	28	4
5.7	3	4	12	3
10	6	4	24	4

Grids activated: 		7

Totals:	104		237	52	

Claimed Score: 12324

Ramblings (long):

Distance Driven:	652 miles
Gas:			about 28 gallons	$83.11
Gas Cost Per QSO:	$0.81
Gas Cost Per Point:	$0.007
   I could have amortized these by being a bit more aggressive about stopping
   to work people up the bands.
Official Visits:	1

Long Distance QSOs:
	EN15xb - EN34lx	146.7 miles
	EN32xw - EN34lx	149.6 miles
	EN42aw - EN34gt	149.6 miles

Stations Worked:	13
	W0ZQ/R	29
	W0GHZ	20
	N0KP	18

Roving is a lot of work.  I keep makeing changes to try making setup, 
diagnosing problems, and operating better, but I still don't have a good
system.

I wanted to try a few things in this contest: finish a VUCC-R on 2304 (10
grids), VUCC-R on 5760 (5 grids), and work from some new places.  I didn't
complete either VUCC-r, but was repeatedly reminded of Mel's talk at Aurora
about working > 200 km.  When I was more than 200km away from the twin cities,
I had a lot of trouble working stations in the twin cities.  All totaled, I
only worked 13 different stations the entire contest.

I loaded the radios & transverters in the car on Thursday.  Friday I finished
with the antennas and went for a test ride.  I found Dave, N0KP and ran through
the bands with him.

I started the contest north-east of Madison, MN near the EN14/EN15/EN24/EN25
grid corner.  I drove through some light rain to the east of Montevideo, while
wondering what that rain would to to propagation (answer: not good).  I went
directly to a spot identified by W0ZQ north of the grid corner.  The SPOT
was a hill with a road going over it, and a nice field pulloff to the
west.  I had a horizon view in all directions, with a noticeable dropoff in
most directions.  WOW!

I started calling CQ towards the twin cities about 10 minutes before the
contest started, but found no-one.  I rotated the antennas towards Fargo,
Grand Forks and Grand Rapids, but still heard nothing.  Darn.  Gary, W0GHZ,
found me
at the start of the contest and we struggled through some bands but didn't
work on 2304.  Conditions on 2m were up and down and sometimes I needed headphones
to hear the twin cities.  Later, W0ZQ/R came on frequency and we worked a few
bands; our 10ghz contact definately had rain on it.  Before leaving EN15, I called on CW for a
couple of minutes each towards rougly Fargo, Grand Forks, Grand Rapids and
straight south.  No takers.

My second site was scouted using topo maps for high ground, and google maps
for locating houses to avoid.  It was an "ok" location (a somewhat hilly area,
but without dropoffs like the EN15 site), but I was able to work all the bands
from there!  I found W0GHZ, N0KP and W0ZQ/R.  Working W0GHZ was difficult,
but W0ZQ/R in EN25 was SSB the whole way!  EN25wb was less than 200km, while
Mapelwood was 236km.  At one point I heard someone calling with "rover" but
they got covered by another station a couple of times and I guess they gave
up.  Sorry!

I made a quick trip back to EN15, hoping to work one more 2304 grid but picked
a bad location.  There was a better EN15 location 1 mile further west but I
wasn't thinking in that direction.  Turning my car engine off drops the noise
level on 2m significantly.  On my way back east, I started hearing the twin
cities well after I closed to less than 200km.

I stopped south of Winsted to activate EN24.  This is a mediocre location and
I think trees prevented completing on the high bands with N0KP.  In the past,
there hasn't been much if any traffic; however this time there was a lot.
This was the only place I worked KM0T through the bands.  I was tired and hours 
behind schedule so I skipped EN25.

I worked W0JT from near home for my token activation of EN34 (I worked a few
others on Sunday morning).  We didn't work on 2304 or 10ghz this time.

Sunday I stuck to my plan and drove to the area near HawkEye, IA to work from
EN32/EN42.  This area is a few miles south of the grid corner.  The trip down
was stressful due to the antennas getting blown around every time a semi
passed me, and the crosswind when I got on Iowa 18.  At one point, my 1296
and 3456 antennas (right above my head) got pushed far enough to the left
that I didn't see them!  What a shock, trying to figure out how I lost an
antenna and didn't even know it.  Some rope helped keep them where they were
supposed to be.  I got lost going through Charles City and left town going
south instead of East.

I didn't have detailed Iowa maps, so I was driving by directions and started
thinking I was way off from where I wanted to be.  I took a turn onto a paved
road and ended up finding two very nice spots for EN32.  At this spot, I
discovered that my 2M coax had disconnected from the antenna (ouch!) and the
amplifier was very warm to touch -- probably as much from being a black object
sitting in the sun as from RF.  I didn't have a spare fan to put on top of
it so I turned on the car's AC.  I was also getting very hot at the time and
started feeling sick.  I did some calling without the amp but I didn't find
twin cities stations until I turned the amp back on.  I worked a few stations
from here, but there were times where everyone just disappeared!  I again had
to use headphones to understand people on 2m.  It's difficult trying to run
headphones on two radios at the same time.

After all that frustration, I decided to move on and find a spot in EN42.  I
went back to my original route plan to look for the spots I identified with
topo maps.  The places I found with topo maps were mediocre at best so I kept
driving.  I got rather lost trying to find the higway I came in on.  A closed
road pushed me further east than I intended to go, but as I was driving north
I came across a SPOT.  Not a tall hill, but an area where the terrain dropped
off towards the north west.  And a field pull-off.  There was a hill several
miles distant, right on the path to the twin cities.  If I have a good take-off,
thats not supposed to make a big difference, right?  I parked and started
calling CQ.  I found N0KP, and Dave told me he was hearing me between lightning
crashes I worked a bunch of stations from here, but again wasn't making it
on the high bands.

I was 3-4 hours from home, and I still wanted to work from EN33 so it was
time to move.  I found pavement and headed west (note: in this part of Iowa,
the power lines don't always follow roads).  I found KM0T on 2M on my way
back, and called him while moble.  Ooops -- what grid am I _really_ in?  The
grid line was around here somewhere.  The GPS had shut off again (I think the
power cable or connection to power socket is flakey).  Then I got into some
hills and a small town and couldn't hear Mike reasonably.  I was tired, and
didn't really care about my score so I didn't pull over and work him on all
bands.  In retrospect, I don't know if this caused Mike to miss that grid on
some bands.

For those who might rove in this area, here are the spots I used:

EN32xw		N42 56 08.9     W92 02 52.7     alt=377.7
               	42.93581N	92.04797W

EN42aw		N42 56 59.8     W91 55 25.2     alt=378.2
               	42.94994N	91.92367W

I left I35 at the Ellendale exit and tried to find a spot.  This area was
tough to find anything between houses and trees.  I settled on a dead-end
road that turned out to be busy.  I gave Matt his grid on 6m & 222 before
leaving.  I found a place further north that I could safely pull off on a
field entrance, but it wasn't good.  I did work N0KP up through 3456 from
there.

I didn't keep score of where I found others, but in general, calling on 144.235
was much less productive than 144.200.  Most of those I found on 144.235 were
those who came looking for me, and for the most part I think we connected
when they called me.

My score ended up being about 5 times as high as I was expecting it to be.

Murphy's Visits:

+ The noise floor on my 1296 transverter is again very loud.  This happened
once before and I thought I had fixed the problem.

+ My 222 transverter was not hearing except at close distances.  The 222
antenna is stacked a few inches under the 2m antenna and I'm pretty sure the
interaction is messing it up.  I did get the SWR down to about 1.5:1 and
people were hearing me.