[NLRS] [10GHzContest] First weekend contest summary (long) (extended)

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

I think the Iowa rove went quite well. No rain, but the gravel roads 
were dusty. We stopped at 12 locations on Saturday, 9 I had picked out 
ahead of time with great north views, and some with easterly views, I 
hadn't anticipated a chance to work west so didn't include looking west 
in my criteria, but we worked LGQ first thing from EN32FG that has a 
good view west by moving across the overpass from the best view north. 
Our second stop at EN32GK an overpass over US20 is super in all 
directions. Lots of corn this year restricted many locations to being 
along the road only which became congested with 5 rover vehicles all 
looking along the road.

We visited 9 sites on Sunday. All the dish rovers worked the hill from 
every stop and on Sunday, added W0GHZ and K0KFC from their homes. On 
place, heading for my prechosen EN32LU the road I wanted to take didn't 
exist, but the next road north had a better view north that my 
preselected site so we used it. Big Sunday surprise was working W9ZIH, 
we tried again later but didn't hear anything. The first and last spots 
we had to search for and that took time. Then from the last one we only 
worked GHZ as the hill had evacuated by then. It was only 3 miles from 
where we had worked the hill, even the horn stations, with about a mile 
and a half to a tree line with tops level with our elevation. But that 
EN32FN was better than EN32GN but might have been too close to EN32EM.

KC0SKM a VHF rover joined us with a newly acquired DEMI 2 watt 
transverter with a 17 dBi horn and was elated to work the hill. On 
Sunday he worked the hill several times. As did AC0RA who joined us on 
Sunday and used ZQ' horn back up system.

I need to explore the area north and east of Cedar Falls for better 
locations. We did take much time finding those new spots that were kind 
of tough locations though the dish rovers did all work the hill from 
every one. I thought I saw better locations within a few miles. It will 
take a couple days of driving to find better locations for more rapid 
moves between locations.

EN32OT was a new location I found last week north of Allison to replace 
one south of Allison that has worked good in past years, but was hidden 
by 9 foot tall corn this year and it had a good shot to Omaha for 
working Chris, Glenn, and Holly, mostly CW but Holly's signal was good 
enough for SSB.

Last year this loop worked poorly on Saturday, but worked great on 
Sunday even before it was enhanced by rain scatter. I added some 
locations further south and further north for more variety. I scouted 
locations last year a lot further south and usee a bunch a lot further 
north last August because signals weren't good enough.

I changed the TR relay Friday and shortened all the coaxes around it and 
gained a watt at the antenna. Now I need a bit of a receiver preamp to 
make it hear as well as it gets out. All the preamps I have on hand have 
too much gain and adjusting the IF gain of the transverter requires 
taking it apart, something I don't want to do while roving when the 
preamp gets fried.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 8/17/2015 11:02 AM, NLRS Regional 10GHz Contest mavens wrote:
> 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
>    -----
> Chris Cox, N0UK    chrisc at chris.org
>
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