[NLRS] June Contest - W0ZQ/R results

[w0zq at aol.com]

As I have mentioned before, my house is having some update work and all my stuff is in the garage.  My rover rack is pinned in (yes, bad planning on my part!).   So I pieced together what I could find; my FT897 with a 6m hamstick, a HB 4 element 2m and 4 element 222 yagi, and a 432 big wheel, bricks for 2, 222, and 432, and my 5.7 and 10G dishes.  

With permission, I operated from Buck Hill, EN34ir, for the first hour on Saturday, then had to attend some family functions for the rest of the day.  I did find Glen, KC0IYT/R out in EN24 and we had some nice Q's on 5.7 and 10gig.  

Early Sunday AM I was back up on top of Buck Hill to try some long distance Q's on 10gigs on skeds.  Unfortunately the tropo was poor ... I noted no morning dew (dry) and the wind was already up and rising.   I did complete one sked with Bill, K0AWU, having a nice S5 SSB rag chew at a distance of 270km.

After that I was playing radio to hand out Q's.  After working some of the bands from Buck Hill I drove out to the EN34/35/24/25 grid corner.   The wind was rising as fast as the temperature was ..... I think sustained wind was around 20 to 25 with gusts over 30 with my car thermometer shoowing 92 degrees.  I worked Gary, W0GHZ on 5.7 and 10g from EN35ab, but at my stop in EN25, my microwave 2m IF rig went belly up.  I suspect that the internal battery may have failed on the old rig, but the short term outcome was no 5.7 or 10gigs from EN25 or EN24.   

Of course 6m was hopping, and even with just a hamstick on the car you can work all sorts of stuff.  When 6m is hot like that its pretty hard to find any activity on the high bands, plus tropo was just not very good.  Nice to work the N0EO guys from EN24 on 2, 222, and 432.  432 was fun as I was running just the big wheel with 100 watts, good ears guys!.   Thanks to NG0R for the easy Q's from out that way and to W0UC & W0GHZ for finding me so quickly from each stop.  

6m   90 x 40
2m   33 x 9
222  14 x 6
432  16 x 5
5.7     3 x 2
10g    4 x 3
 
160 Q's x 65+4 => 14,559 pts.

73, Jon
W0ZQ/R

PS:  Do not forget to log ALL rovers with the /R, like this "W0ZQ/R".  Logging a rover without the /R will result in a busted QSO.   Also, please remember to add "Northern Lights Radio Society" as your club ..... lots of good scores out there and it looks like those of us in the Upper Midwest had the upper hand this year in terms of propagation (excluding the east coast which worked a ton of Europe)