[NLRS] KK6MC/r in UHF Contest

[James Duffey]

Thanks for all the QSOes!

There are any number of morality tales and fables warning against coveting what your neighbor has, but, damn, you guys have great roving out here. I am envious. 

Conditions were much better than what I am used to in NM, even when people said that the band was flat. And with no mountains in the way, long distance troposcatter contacts were straight forward. The activity on 1296 and 902 was great and I ended up working more different stations on those bands than I ever have before in a contest. W0UC’s spotting page was useful, as was the capabilities spreadsheet. I, and others, made good use of texting, and I realize now that I should have distributed my cell number more widely. I worked several rovers, another rarity on the UHF bands in the SW, and hats off to AC0RA/r for being conscientious in following me from grid to grid. Most stations were efficient in coming up on frequency and making the QSO quickly. K2DRH was also good at following me around and it was especially nice to work him on 902 and 1296.

I used CW a lot, in large part due to my uncertainty on path losses in this part of the country and my receiving capabilities on the higher bands, but many of those QSOes could have been done on SSB. I just thought it would be quicker to start on CW than to fight repeats on SSB and then switch to CW. Thanks for understanding. Especially nice were the QSOes with WD9BGA. He was running one watt and we worked with no problem. Those are nice QSOes. 

I started late due to a family breakfast in Sioux Falls and then we were headed west to east the long way across the grids, so it was slow going on Saturday afternoon. Still, QSOes with AC0RA/r, N0LNO/r, W0UC, and K2DRH made it worthwhile, especially the 322 mile one from EN13 to Bob. We spent a lot of time Saturday night trying to find a hotel room near Clear Lake Iowa as they were having a car show that weekend. I suppose seasoned rovers in the midwest know that, but it did put us to bed late and up late the next morning. In the frustration of trying to find a place to stay, we bent a couple of 222MHz Yagi elements on a low lying tree. I had to do some quick antenna repair work and, after observing that a 1963 Ford Fairlane has ignition noise up to 432, we got on the road. I listened on 432MHz while in motion and heard K2DRH and KA0PQW in QSO and worked them both. This with an 8ft antenna in motion pointed towards the front of the car with no rotor. I made several other QSOes while in motion, which is surprising given the narrow bandwidth of the antenna and arbitrary pointing. 

We finished off the contest by hitting a detour which kept us from hitting another grid. I hit 5 grids and had hoped for 6. Oh well, it was a good success anyway.

Rig was a TS-2000X with Elecraft 222 and DEMI 902 transverters. The Elecraft transverter drives an old KLM 120W amp. ON 222MHz and 432MHz I use W7QQ 8ft boom length Yagis. These are essentially the first 8ft of the K1FO design with the elements rearranged a bit so that the antenna balances in the middle and can be clamped to the mast in the middle of the boom. This is not a novel approach, I think that the Directive Systems rover antennas were developed the same way. On 902 I have a surplus 15 element Yagi with about 14 dB gain. I bought this at Dayton after I saw W9SZ buying one. The 1296 antenna is  4ft loop Yagi. The 222MHz antenna is at the top of a 12ft mast. The 902 and 1296 bands got their first real workout in this contest, we don’t have much activity on those bands in NM.

Again, thanks for all the QSOes and support and I am already trying to figure out how to come back and rove up here some time in the future. I think with proper route planning and minimal family issues I could do really well. Thanks and cu in January. Hope for Es. - Duffey KK6MC/r