[NLRS] W9FZ/R + KA9VVQ/R scrambling to get a rove together

[Bruce Richardson]

Janice and I are scrambling to put together an alterna-rover. Rather 
than use the table with all the traditional rigs and troubleshoot the 
bands that seemed to fail in January, we are using a Yeasu FT-897 (that 
has a 222 xverter in it) so that should give us ABCD.  We are hitting 
amplifiers on BC&D.  But the 222 is only putting out 6w so the amp may 
not get hit very hard.    Then antennas are "cheap yagi's" so a little 
gain but not lots.  And we are taking 10GHz.

Our plan is to do the Howard Lake grid corner on Saturday.  We've put 
our schedule on the planning spreadsheet.  We know that EN24 and EN25 
are the more valuable grids at that corner.

Sunday, we'll trek to the Beaufort corner (south of Mankato to give out 
a little more EN24 and then EN23.  Then we'll drive the long dimension 
of the grid to finish the contest at the St Charles corner.  EN33 and 
EN43 are the important ones there. But we will also trek to Altura to 
give out EN44 and will give out a little EN34 action east of Rochester 
nearing the end of the contest.

We will be chirping APRS as w9fz-15.  One way to watch us is at:
http://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FW9FZ-15

We will also try to make updates to the regional thing that W0UC set 
up.  We don't intend to be on ON4KST unless someone thinks we really 
need to be.

We aren't going to be as loud as usual and aren't going to reach out as 
far as usual. But we'll be out there.  Find us on 144.240 and hopefully 
.140 on other bands. We seem to like .190 on 6m.

We will be looking for all the callsigns--fixed and rover--that posted 
on W0UC's regional spreadsheet. And we'll be looking for the regulars.  
And we'll be looking east-southeasterly into BadgerContester land hoping 
to hook up with some of you.

We've got LOTS to do between now and departing the house to get to the 
first stop.  Hope it all happens :-)  .  Looking forward to a dose of RF 
this weekend!  Questions? call us on the cell 651-491-1077

73
Bruce W9FZ/R and Janice KA9VVQ/R