[OKDXA] Yet another Rover tail... er a tale...

[Charlie Calhoun, K5TTT]

Ok not bad.  450 miles, tons of fun but Single Op Rover is not easy.

Planned as much as we could before the trip and it ended up paying off.
Still took pencils and paper just in case.  I had no mechanical or RF
problems to hold me back.  New rig worked flawlessly along with antenna,
never a problem.  Biggest problem wasn't realized until sundown.  I got away
about 2 hours after I desired and the sun was going down as I entered Major
county and the Q's dropped off significantly from the east coast.

Picked up a few in Washington on the way through.  Stopped in downtown
Bartlesville for a few Q's.  After this I realized that I could not 1.
Drive, 2.Navigate, 3. Operate and 4. Log all at the same time.

Next was Osage county and handed out several Q's after finding a nice big
hill to sit on top of.  This ended up being the theme of the day.

Kay was next and had a pretty good run there.  No propagation on 10m at all.
EU started coming in.  Started working HA's and OZ's here and in the next
couple of counties too.

Grant was a wanted county and had a real good run there.  There are no hills
in Grant county so found a mound to sit on and could still see for miles.
Picked up a few Q's on 15 while going down the road towards Alfalfa.  15 was
open fine but the bands were quiet.  I enjoy a good clear frequency but with
50kc between signals it makes it hard for folks to find you.  So logging was
nice and slow and I could peek over to the keyboard while I was driving.

Alfalfa was another good one.  Stopped and picked something up for dinner
and went out to the Great Salt Plains State Park and found a picnic table to
eat and a place to park and hand out the county.

Woods was another good run 42 Q's from Woods in the log.  Good propagation
on 20 to all over.

Woodward was good but here's when I noticed my problem.  Propagation was
starting to deteriorate as the sun went down on the east coast and a lot of
those stations were gone by the time I left leaving fewer than desired Q's
in Major county.

After Major county 20 was very quiet.  40 was almost unusable until later in
the night.  Handed out only a few in Garfield, none in Pawnee and only a
couple on 40 in Tulsa.  Filled in several mults on 80 from Rogers and went
to bed.  80 was in good shape by late evening.

I heard folks working Coy all day long.  He's got to have a good log.  I
heard the pileup that the heathens had in Dewey.  That may have made their
trip.  Curious how many Q's you guys got from Dewey.  Only heard 1 station
working Bruce.  Shared a freq with Coy a few times, once I realized I moved.
Ended up at 275 at one point.  I think NF4A was good at spotting us on the
cluster.

Got NL7UZ for AK and K4MUT in RI.  Missed HI, IA, AR, NM, ID, MT, NH and VT.
46 mults and 234 Q's.  Not fantastic but respectable.  Bettered Coy's rover
score from last year but I'm pretty sure that Coy and the ATV bunch did
pretty well and probably scored above me.  Doesn't matter though it was fun
and worth it.  Like Dave said, would I do it again, DEFINITELY, but not
tomorrow.  This was great fun.  I think I'll see if I can get a logger next
year.  That's the one thing that would have made it much easier.  Would have
been nice to try and pick up those last mults in the morning after getting
back.

Thanks everyone for working us and getting on the air.  And sharing the
stories.

73
Charlie Calhoun, K5TTT