[NLRS] First weekend contest summary (long)

[Chris Cox]

Morning, All.

Just a quick recap of our impromptu rove with Glen in (mostly) eastern 
Nebraska this past weekend.

We asked Glen if he'd mind us tagging along with his efforts to work some 
much longer microwave paths than have been explored much in this area of 
the country using Joe Taylor, K1JT's, excellent digital weak-signal 
software, WSJT.  I have not used the s/w much for several years and, in 
the past, only for 144 and 222MHz random meteor scatter contacts which was 
its elemental purpose.  I knew of its popularity at enabling relatively 
small VHF stations to be successful working the world off of the moon, but 
that wasn't something I had experimented much with at the old QTH.

So, with the expectation of making possibly a handful of contacts at best 
albeit over good distances, Holly and I headed down to Sioux City, IA, to 
join our rove leader, Captain Overby!  For me, that's a long drive for a 
weekend and probably not something I'll repeat for a while.

So, we arrived around 7:00pm on Friday and found an excellent Indian 
restaurant a stone's throw from our hotel, the Shahi Palace.  If you find 
yourself in Sioux City, I'd definitely recommend it for excellent food, 
ambience and service at a low price.

Saturday morning we met up with Glen on the outskirts of So Sioux City, a 
short drive from our hotels.  The vista's from each of the locations we 
stopped at this weekend were without exception beautiful.  This first 
location eas apparently picked in my honour - en12UK!  We spent quite a 
bit of time here trying to work Donn and Ray who were both set up atop 
Buck Hill, but without success.  Donn was plagued with what turned out to 
be well-hidden electrical faults which he ended up spending the day 
rectifying, and Ray with software woes that eventually caused him to 
shutdown.  It was starting to seriously look like we'd be heading back to 
the Twin Cities prematurely on Saturday after lunch to reconsider our 
options.  Glen did get a phone call from a newcomer to the band who was 
setup at home near Omaha, Greg, W0LGQ.  Glen and I did manage to work him 
on CW to break our duck with signals just above the noise floor.

Just before 11 local time, Dave, N0KP, called us from Buck Hill to let us 
know that Greg was on and would like to try working us, if possible.  I 
said we'd already worked with some difficulty.  So together we decided to 
give it a try to work Buck Hill to Sioux City not really expecting much 
success over the 351km path, especially as Dave had said conditions to the 
north eastern Iowa rover pack were tough over the ~250km path.  Anyway, 
after beaconing for a short time, we could all hear each other, 
significantly above the noise, and we all worked fairly easily on SSB.

Not a complete loss after all!

So, buoyed with initial siccess, Glen, Holly and I decided to press on 
with plans and work our way south and away from the Twin Cities. 
Proceedign on through the afternoon, we were able to work most of the 
guys on Buck Hill from another two stops out to 395km, only failing to 
make it from our fourth location about 25 miles north of Fremont, NE, 
where we found accomodations for the night.

Sunday morning we resumed from a location very close to our final stop of 
Saturday and conditions were notably improved and we easily worked Buck 
Hill from EN11sm at a good distance of 440km.  Donn, Wa2VOI, was back 
operational again, having fixed the nasty gremlins from Saturday's 
attempts.  Glen and I also were able to work Gary, W0GHZ, who was on from 
home at a new best DX of 474km, followed by a sweep of the main rover pack 
at a distance of 335km.

Our second stop of the day was in EN11or from where we Worked All Buck 
Hill at 438km but also were astounded to make it with Jim, K0KFC, at home 
in EN35rj on SSB at our overall best DX of 533km.  That's a new personal 
tropo record for me - thanks Jim!

We worked one more location in Nebraska before falling prey to the minimum 
10 mile move rule before we headed north-east back into SW Iowa,  Quick 
lunch break in Sioux City followed by dessert at the Blue Bunny ice cream 
parlour in Le Mars, IA - The Ice Cream Capital of the World!

Our final stop was just east of Le Mars in EN12wt where we quickly ran The 
Hill again right before they were forced to tear down due to very 
inclement weather - 312km DX.

Then began our long trek home which was in solid rain from a point just a 
couple of miles north of our final operating location until we reached 
home in Minneapolis.  Some of that rain was VERY heavy, but mostly just 
regular, microwave-attenuating, garden-variety rain that could have not 
been helping our efforts.

So, it turned out to be a most-outstanding first weekend which gave us all 
new tropo DX personal bests, some excellent relaxation with friends, very 
good food, and lots of RF-induced fun.

Thank you very much Dave for your coordination of effrots on the hill, 
especially given the impromptu and almost certainly distracting work of 
moving focus from north-eastern Iowa.

And many thanks to Glen from welcoming our intrusion into his planned WSJT 
efforts - it was great to spend the weekend with you.

Oh, and one of these times we're finally going to find a place where our 
traditional modes (SSB & CW) really no longer work and we need the 
incredible very weak-signal enhancement facilitated by Joe's software.

73 Chris
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Chris Cox, N0UK    chrisc at chris.org