[NLRS] Fwd: 2017 August 10G Cumulative weekend

Tue Feb 28 16:51:09 EST 2017

Parts of US20 across Iowa are built to interstate standards for 
intersections and lack of country road crossings. Parts are not and have 
country road crossings every mile. A bit of US20 from the SW corner of 
Sioux city into Nebraska is also designated I-129. Some of US20 in 
western Iowa is two lane but being built to four lane divided, I don't 
know if it meets interstate standards, have avoided that area lately. 
Mostly across Illinois US-20 is not built to interstate standards though 
there's a hint of that at Peoria and approaching Chicago. If on your map 
it shows US20 going through Rockwell City and Sac City, its obsolete. US 
20 now goes mostly straight west from Moorland to the old US20 west 
bound north of Early Iowa. There is a one mile jog to the north (west 
bound) north west of Sac City.

I have roved west from Ellsworth hoping to use US20 several times with 
Gary and Jon and solo. Invariably we have found it necessary to work 
north, sometimes ending up at Storm Lake or further north along US18 not 
very far from the Minnesota border. I have many spots located and mapped 
but working towards Buck Hill, none for working west. Typically between 
Waterloo and Storm Lake the lay of the land is in east west ridges 
probably annual moraines from a slowly retreating glacier. Last time I 
went west solo I found such a ridge SW of Eagle Grove and was able to 
follow it for a long ways, then I went south west to Storm Lake and 
couldn't work anybody, possibly from a low battery so I came home and 
started out Sunday morning with a fresh battery and moved further north 
and had a good day.

The Loess Hills of the western Iowa border make for a serious blockage 
from central Iowa to Nebraska though we did work IYT, Chris, and Holley 
from north of Allison in NE Iowa once.

 From my exploration of NE Iowa last year it is hard to find locations 
good for Buck Hill and working east and/or west without moving between 
them. Even for EN32FG we had to move to the west side of the overpass to 
work LGQ and to the east side to work the hill and that overpass is one 
of the best ones around, high enough that crops don't affect it. I 
thought I had another one west on US-20 from I-35 but it didn't work 
good at all last time I tried it. Too much ridge to the north of it. 
Other overpasses going east get messed up in some direction by the trees 
of a farmstead within a half mile or less from the overpass.

Then crops mostly tall corn have made many a site that worked one year, 
not work the next couple years. So it takes a lot of precontest scouting 
to be able to plan ahead. I found more east of here than we used last 
year, some better than what we did use by my eyes and level.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 2/28/2017 3:11 PM, wb0ljc wrote:
>
>
>
> Sorry, but it is US-20 not I-20.
>
> LJC
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: 2017 August 10G Cumulative weekend
> Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2017 14:53:27 -0600
> From: wb0ljc <wb0ljc at comcast.net>
> To: NLRS <nlrs at mailman.qth.net>, 10GHzContest <10ghzcontest at www.chris.org>
>
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Planning for the Nebraska eclipse trip started more then a year ago
> when Donn said he was going to view the eclipse. Then the realization
> came that the 10 G Cumulative was the Saturday and Sunday before the
> eclipse. The result is that people decided to bring their 10 G equipment.
>
> I started thinking about where we could go and still be able to work
> both Buck Hill and the Neb ops. The result is, I plan to rove in West
> Central
> Iowa starting near the Ellsworth site Jerry has mentioned and traveling
> generally west on I-20. The Neb groups plan to run North and South
> routes. On Saturday the North group starts near Norfolk and ends the
> day near Ainsworth, while the south group starts near Beatrice and ends
> the day near Holdrege. I have looked at the distances from Ellsworth and
> they are workable, 330 and 350 km. Buck hill has been worked from there
> many times. If the rovers end the day near Holstein, IA the distances
> are longer, 350, 400 and 310km. The last is to Buck Hill. Workable, but
> getting a little long. One of the WSJT modes should make the paths to Neb.
> I would like to run with the Neb ops 4 to 6 times on Saturday and maybe
> 1-2 early Sunday morning. The Sunday rover path would have us heading
> back East, probably 20 miles North of the Saturday route. We have been
> to this area before and worked the hill.
>
> The alternative, if weather and conditions allow, is to continue further
> West and end Saturday to the East of Souix City. The distances here
> are a little shorter, 300 to Ainsworth, 350 to Holdrege but 340 to BH.
>
> Weather could change everything. In that case we will have to see what
> the weather conditions allow.
>
> The problem with an I-20 route is that we will need sites that are good
> to BH from 0 to about 45 degrees and 270 to 230 degrees to the Neb ops.
> I was hoping that we could find overpasses but I haven't seen to many
> of them when going west.
>
> For September I would like to run nearly the same route that we did last
> year. We know more about the route now so I would like to try with
> YAZ and the other Illinois fixed ops. We didn't get much of a chance
> last year.
>
> Lake Superior has on the calendar for 2018 for some time. Fast
> Eddie requested that we go back to the Lake at Aurora last year.
> I would have pushed for it this year, but there was the eclipse trip.
> Barry, there hasn't been much interest around here in getting the
> bands above 10 G going. A number of us have parts, etc, but with
> no one else to work there has been no progress. The only working
> units that are capable of working a good distance are on loan to ZQ
> from KMØT. The most likely paths for bands above 10 G are
> from the UP to Canada or UP to the MN North Shore. Most of the North
> Shore sites are blocked to the Marathon and Terrace Bay sites you
> have used in Canada. Also, unless conditions are bad we should be
> able to span the lake to Wawa from a number of sites on the NS.
> August is definitely the preferred month. We have been up there
> in September, much cooler and a lot more wind. If we went to Superior
> this September we wouldn't have the Michigan ops. They spend the
> weekend on Lake Michigan. Airplane scatter across the lake is of
> limited use. I have looked with the Airplane scatter program and don't
> seen very many planes passing through the area.
>
> Who would like to join me in Central Iowa?
>
> 73, Gary WBØLJC
>
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