[NLRS] 2016 CQWW VHF

[aduhawk at comcast.net]

We like this contest. Just two bands means one radio in the car and an easier time lifting the tripod holding the antennas on top of the SUV. (I am in my EXTREMELY late forties now). Since CQ does not have a family classification for this contest we used Pat's call 

We enjoy operating from Upper Lake Park in Port Washington. It has a great shot across Lake Michigan -- we've even worked W2SZ on three bands from up there -- and it's just a nice view. The problem is that the CQWW VHF conflicts with the "World's Largest Fish-fry" that happens to be held there on the same weekend as this contest every year. There is another park just south of town that is also on a bluff that has enough of a parking area so we can move the vehicle around when we need to change the direction of the antennas. 

There was enough of a 6 meter opening at the beginning that we worked a bunch of EMs and FNs from up there plus many regional stalwarts on 2. K9JK/9 decided Saturday morning to head north as well, and through the day we were able to compare favorite rover stops and a few QSOs. 

>From there we drove up to Two Rivers and parked alongside one of them (across from the USCG station) and wound up doing well on 2 meters including working a Chicago area rover in EN51 (W9YOY/R) and a fixed station in South Bend, IN with an S9 signal. We headed inland on Route 10 through EN54. A few miles east of Brillion there is a nice hill with a 360 degree view. We met K9JK/R up there and had an eyeball. We got to see John's new FT 991 and his loop arrangement on the roof of the CorollaRover. John took off and we held forth for a while. 

Next, we hung a left just east of Lake Winnebago and ran sough through EN53 with the accompaniment of a nice 6 meter opening and some local favorites like W9GA. K9JK told us where his favorite EN53 spot was so we wiggled around and found it to be greeted by more 6 meter fun, including the University of Alabama Club station. They must have just had a licensing class, because we had to be the first QSO for the young man we worked. That's OK, we need new VHF ops. 

Then we followed the GPS on the county roads zigzagging through EN53, and EN62 to the Illinois border where we ran into Marshall, W9RVG and his impressive station in EM57. We were on the Wisconsin line, and he is almost in the Ohio River at the other end of Illinois. It was easy on 2, but no love on 6 from there or later from EN61. We arrived home after 10:00, ate and crashed, excited about going out Sunday morning. 

Those thunderstorms were in the area Sunday morning, so we waited until the line passed us to get going around 10:00 AM. We headed down to the four corners of EN50/60/51/61 working some 6 and some 2 meter locals. Some of those signals out of 4-land were huge. N4OX, N4BP, K1TO seemed to be in there all of the time. We chatted with the husband/wife multi-op at NV9L. Valerie's husband Jerry WB9Z, the accomplished DXer and contester was helping out using her call. I said that I thought that it was pretty gallant of him to let Val take the spotlight, but she mentioned that Jerry was just looking for her to have to answer the QSLs. 

We hit the four corners and had some luck making it back into Chicago and catching some Es, and we came across Gary, N9GH who was a bit south of us in EN50. We made some contacts as we moved around and later had an eyeball at a Burger King further south on I57. We had independently decided to head south out of our EN comfort zone and see what life was like in EM69 and 59. We got set up there in between the cornfields, frequently straddling the road as we would rotate to catch stations on 2. We were pleased to run into K0DEK and W0TTP i n EM48 from a couple of grids. 

We spent the last fifteen minutes of the contest CQing near a Dairy Queen, thinking about a post-contest Peanut Buster Parfait. 

We will input the log into Roverlog this week in order to get our score, but it looks like 178 QSOs from eleven grids with 55 distinct grids worked. Congratulations to everyone who participated and thanks for the QSOs to those we were able to work. 

73, Tim K0PG and Pat K9ILT 
The Rovairs Extraordinaires