ARRL UHF Contest
Call: AE0EE/R
Operator(s): AE0EE
Station: AE0EE/R
Class: Limited Rover LP
QTH: EN24/34
Operating Time (hrs): 1.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
222:
432: 2 2
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 2 2 Total Score = 12
Club: Northern Lights Radio Society
Comments:
My plan actually worked! I was a little nervous about my first rover operation,
when I barely have a station cobbled together at all. Particularly concerning
was the rule that to be a rover, you need to sign /R consistently, and _must_
operate from at least two grids. The possibility that I'd get bumped down to a
checklog for only making a QSO from one grid was quite real.
My station is enough to get on the air, but that's about it. The rig is a
Yaesu FT-857d, which has 20 W out on 432 MHz. For my antenna, I was using an
Arrow 7-element yagi, up 10-12', fed with 50' of LMR-240 (from EN34), or 6' of
RG-58 (EN24). The mast was equipped with an Armstrong rotator.
I wish I had taken a picture of the operation in EN24! It was quite the sight.
My "tower" is a 3/4" pvc mast (in 3'-4' sections, repurposed
from my portable 6m Moxon). To keep it from swaying side to side, I used extra
sections and a T at the base. However, front and back was still an issue. To
solve that, I used a 5' step ladder, bringing the mast up the inside of the
ladder and lashing it to the top step with a bungee cord.
I found that the paint tray table of the ladder made a great place to put my
rig, and that it let me use the 6' run of coax (admittedly more lossy than I'd
like) to the beam. There were just enough places to put the battery, powerpole
distribution panel, solar panel, key, mic, headphones, and log.
As with the June VHF contest, the new coordination rules were instrumental in
making this fun. Without the rules, I'd either not participate at all, or
participate by submitting a log inflated by one QSO and declared in the soapbox
to show that I was trying (you can't submit a 0-point, QSO-free log).
>From my shack in EN34, I managed to work W0ZQ (76 km) on CW, though we were
both right near the noise. My 50' of rather lossy feedline was probably a lot
of that problem. Sunday I took the station a few miles down the road to EN24
and tried to work N0TTW. I could hear that there was someone there, but not
enough to copy. K0BBC at W0ZF tried to work me, too, but I didn't hear a
thing---not even the carrier during tuning. Finally, thanks to the spotting
from K0BBC and N0TTW, W0UC found where I was listening and gave a few calls on
CW. Not long later and I had my EN24 QSO in the book and a successful rover
operation (though I realized I had left the laptop for JT65 and the official
logging on the kitchen table).
For next time, I'm going to try to do better at convincing the locals to show
up on 446, so there are more QSOs available locally. My ability to improve the
station hardware is hindered by a very limited budget (and space; moving is no
fun), so while the feedline will probably see upgrades, transverters, amps,
towers, more bands, and large beams are out of the question.
Lots of words for just two QSOs (hi hi)!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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