[NLRS] Our first rove...

[Scott]

AI9Z and I had a great time on our first UHF contest rove.  We ended up 
driving most of the time, with quite limited time at stops.  Ended up 
with about 510 new miles on the rover truck.  We ended up only using 
222, 432 and 902...just didn't have time and/or locations to set up the 
10 GHz.  Only made 36 QSO, but all were qaulity contacts to us!  We had 
65W on 222, 75W on 432 and about 6W on 902.  Antennas were 4 element 
224WB on 222, HB 432 10 element yagi and commercial 8 element yagi on 902.

Things WE learned...next time, we want to have HoLoops in addition to 
the yagis on all bands as some of the roads are curvy and we were always 
trying to keep a certain beam heading to work others.  We have to get a 
different rotor...our had some sort of gearing problem and would 
sometimes get stuck after rotating a bit so we had to stop a few times 
to "recalibrate" the antennas with the rotor box readout ;)

Highlights:
Worked KC9BQA from several grids while in motion.  432 was our better 
band with Todd (and many others).
Working W9FZ on 222, 432 AND 902 from several grids, even off the back 
of Bruce's antennas.
W0UC putting out BOOMING signals from the farm in EN44.

Lowlights:
No contacts from the top of Rib Mountain (EN54)...not entirely 
unexpected...we had S7 noise level on 432 up there, presumably from the 
transmitters up there.
No contacts from EN56 either...hate when that happens!
Working N0AKC once.  He seemed to have RX issues and we never hooked up 
after a couple of contacts.

Will we do it again?  Yup.  And...we already have plans on how to fix 
things that didn't work well this time and some additional stuff to make 
it even easier.

Thanks to all the fixed stations and rovers who hung in there with us 
until we made the QSO!!

-- 
Scott N0EDV
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Flying Corben Junior Ace - Building RV-4
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die