[NLRS] W9FZ/R and KA9VVQ/R did a little roving this weekend

[Bruce Richardson]

Playing in a Guts Frisbee Tourney in Appleton, WI was my priority for the
weekend.  But Janice and I always like to be in VHF+ contests when we can.

Last year, Janice went to a lot of effort to come up with a system for her
car to be used as a rover.  This involves Yakima roof racks, a board with a
center mount point for a PVC post, and a FT-857 complete with TGE power
conditioner and LDG tuner.  This June contest was the first and best
opportunity to give it a work-out.  We used a hamstick on 6m, a PAR Omni
Angle on 2m, and a 432 big-wheel.  Power from the 857 was 100w, 50w, and 20w
respectively.  

Over the years, we've found a hamstick on 6m to work fine for E-skip
openings.  However, for working locals we find taking the mag-mount and
putting it on the SIDE of the car at either horizontal or perhaps a 45
degree angle to be workable.  Sure, a dipole or a Moxon at 18' would be
better. But we are thrilled to still get a few local 6m Q's from a hamstick.
Her car is a Subaru Impreza--it sits pretty low to the ground. The hamstick
is MAYBE 6 feet off the ground when horizontal.  BIG compliments to W0UC for
hearing us at 145 miles in EN54re on 6m!

On Saturday, with the tournament going on, Janice periodically checked the
bands but didn't find much going on. After play had stopped, we hopped in
the car thinking of going to the hotel for me to get showered up and get
dinner.  We checked the bands and found K9JK/R on 2m. He was in EN64--about
40 miles away.  We worked him on 6m and tried to work him on 432, but I
failed to flip the coax switch to the 432 antenna.  We listened around and
heard no openings going on so headed to the hotel.

After getting cleaned up and fed, we headed about 5 miles west of Neenah to
a little airport called Brenard Airport EN54rd.  We found 6m a little bit
open!  We made 17 Q's to the CT, MD, VA area. We also worked K9JK/R who was
now in EN54.  As the night fell and the band weakened, we worked locals like
WA9TT, W9GA, and W9EWZ.  We also picked up W0UC on 2 bands at 145 miles.

On day 2 of the Frisbee tournament, I sustained an injury to the middle
finger of my left hand. We've since learned I broke my finger.  As the
tournament winnowed down to the finals, I observed and photographed some
fine Guts Frisbee play.  I was asked to represent my Dad and present the
trophy named for him.  Our original plans, after the tournament was over,
were to drive through EN53 to our cabin near Hillsboro, WI.  But with my
injury, we knew that we wanted to try and get doctors appointments in the
Twin Cities on Monday.  So we decided to drive to the Wausau grid corner
(which is on the way to the Twin Cities) thinking we could be the most help
to other ops by activating EN55 and EN45.

As we drove along through EN54, we had a ball working the 6m opening to the
West and Southwest.  Highlights were working people you know like W7D/R
(AC0RA), Duffey KK6MC/R, and Jay W9RM.  We got to the grid-corner around 9pm
and had a busy hour working W0UC and W9GA in EN55, EN45, and EN44.  We
worked DM38 from EN55 but conditions were fading.

So we ended up with much more VHF ham radio than we expected on account of
the nice 6m openings.  We liked sitting side-by-side for operating the
FT-857 on the front dash of her car.  

We ended up with:
Band	Q's  Qpts	Mults
6m	35       35               21 
2m         14       14               6
432          6        12              3
Total      55         61            34            2,074 points  

73
Bruce W9FZ/R and Janice KA9VVQ/R