[NLRS] W0ZF/R June VHF Unlimited Rover LP

[W. S. Mitchell]

 2019 ARRL June VHF
W0ZF/R Unlimited Rover LP
Station: W0ZF/R
Operators: AE0EE, K0BBC, W0ZF
Club: Northern Lights Radio Society
Time: ~20 hrs

Band   QSOs   Grids
50     144     76
144     4     3
432     3     2
Total     151     81
Rover grids (7): DN75, DN85, DN94, DN95, EN05, EN15, EN25
Score: 13,552

Mode breakdown:
 Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Grd  Pt/Q
    50  CW      22      22   10   1.0
    50  FT8     50      50   34   1.0
    50  MSK1     6       6    5   1.0
    50  USB     66      66   27   1.0
   144  FM       1       1    1   1.0
   144  USB      3       3    2   1.0
   420  CW       1       2    1   2.0
   420  USB      2       4    1   2.0

As others have remarked, conditions were up and down for the VHF contest.
There were openings at the beginning, a bit Saturday evening, and then near
sunset on Sunday.  The meteors were pretty good Sunday morning, and we
worked several stations pretty quickly on 6 m MSK144.

I think we learned a few things this weekend:
* Test the generator a week or two before the contest.
* Put gas in the vehicle, generator, and spare fuel tank before leaving the
last major town on the way to a remote contest location.
* Bring 10 GHz in case of thunderstorms!
* It pays to do pre-contest press with the local hams.
* Make sure full rig control and CW keying are ready for the logging
laptop---hand-keying on a J-38 while bouncing down the road is not the most
comfortable or efficient experience.
* Multi-mode rover logging in N1MM+ ( +WSJT-X) is unwieldy; if proper
procedures aren't followed (easy to miss), a few QSOs don't end up in
N1MM+, or rover grids don't get updated in both places.  We had to
reconcile manually.
* N1MM+ doesn't support a /R rover suffix for Cabrillo output.

It was fun to work a few stations on 6 meter meteor scatter Sunday morning,
handing out the rare DN94 to several stations closing in on their FFMA
award (e.g. W0VTT).
We came across a few ham-themed businesses (QLF - Quality Liquid Feed; and
DX Bait), which broke up the long drive across the Dakotas.

We met local hams along the way: an entire net in Dickinson, ND, including
Jason (KD0HCR) who we met in person, and  Dean (W7THD) from Ekalaka, MT.
Jason was almost able to work us Saturday evening at >90 miles, but foliage
and crossed polarization losses were too great to complete the contact.
Dean gave us advice on forest service road conditions and how best to
access the site we had chosen to operate from, and was able to provide a
contest QSO with a rare grid.  Hopefully we can do more preparation and
planning with the local hams for next year, and get more stations on the
air which we can work on 144 and 432 MHz.

We ran an APRS receiver and database program which I (AE0EE) designed to
show 2 m propagation conditions.  The program worked (so far as its
functionality allowed), but propagation left something to be desired---we
only heard one South Dakota digipeater (either originating or digipeating a
packet) all weekend, though we took a route that kept us far from many of
the larger digipeaters in the state.

Roving is always an adventure.  One day it's sunny and 92 F with
thunderstorms in the area at nightfall, the next you find yourself on a
4000' AMSL summit where it's 47 F, windy, and threatening to rain, and the
next it's 68 F and sunny with a nice breeze.  You meet interesting people,
get lots of weird looks, see different wildlife (like the black tern I
added to my life list!), and even if propagation isn't great, it's easy to
have fun roving with friends.

73,
  Bill (AE0EE), Matt (K0BBC), and Dave (W0ZF)