Re HF that is a good suggestion. I often monitor the aurora net frequency
(7055 lsb) during the daytime when I am in the back country. I'm not sure
that frequency and mode would work for the U.S. due to their band plans but I'd
be willing to give HF a try. Maybe 40M in the day time and 80M at night ?
Setting up an auto tuner, whip and counter poise is fairly quick for me. It
would be nice to have a plan B if there is no internet / cellular service.
Best regards
Mark S
VE7AFZ
Sent from my iPhone
> On Sep 16, 2015, at 6:23 PM, VE3DS <ve3ds@acanac.net> wrote:
>
> One thing for spotting, back in the day (before Internet) we used to use HF
> for our VHF nets… like the EME Net, CSVHF Net, ECVHF Net,
> 28.885 for 50 MHz… why not establish a liaison net on HF for
> contests that rovers can access…
> Kind of retro, but might be easier than trying to get cell service in a
> remote area…
> Dana VE3DS
>
>> On Sep 16, 2015, at 4:58 PM, Steve Stahl <ke7ihg@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I traveled to DN02 this contest...had no phone or internet. Worked my ×@$
>> off and spent a fair amount of money.
>> In the end I had 18 Q's....Would I have done better with spotting, yes I
>> think so.
>> I'm not sure I'll travel to any remote grids again without access to the
>> world.
>> It was fun and a beautiful trip but also was frustrating.
>> Very hard to justify that much treasure , both in sweat , time and money.
>>
>> Like it or not I am good with spotting and I doubt that anyone who wants
>> mults, particularly rare ones would complain
>>
>> Steve / KE7IHG
>>> On Sep 16, 2015 11:50 AM, "Mark Spencer" <mark@alignedsolutions.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A few comments re this.
>>>
>>> I've found that MS / long haul digital qso's are challenging to make while
>>> roving / portable especially if I don't have good Internet connectivity.
>>> Over 90 percent of the successful MS / long haul digi mode QSO's that I
>>> have made outside of contests would not have happened without constant
>>> access to the internet by both me and the other station. These QSO's on
>>> average probably took 30 minutes or so to complete.
>>>
>>> During the last contest I spent about an hour in total of my six and a
>>> half hours of prime operating time in a semi rare grid trying to work MS
>>> with no results. About half this time was spent in an effort to work a
>>> station in a rare grid that prior to the contest had announced they were
>>> going to run on digi modes. Deciding to run MS / digi modes was my choice
>>> though and on balance I'd probably do it again as I would have liked to
>>> work the rare grid, and I figured I had a reasonable chance of picking up
>>> at least one more grid in that hour, but things didn't work out that way.
>>>
>>> (Between the 11am pst contest start time, and my desire to have a two hour
>>> tear down and packup process done before nightfall I had about 6 and a half
>>> hours to run the entire station. I was able to keep the 2M station up
>>> until the very end. Staying overnight is also apparently not allowed in
>>> that location.)
>>>
>>> I doubt I will run MS or long haul digi modes in a future contest without
>>> a pre arranged sched on a frequency other than the customary calling
>>> frequencies, and preferably some form of near real time communications with
>>> the other station to confirm that they are looking for me.
>>>
>>> In hindsight during the last contest I'm almost certain I would have
>>> picked up more grids and or bands by focusing on terrestrial ssb / CW for
>>> another hour, but hindsight is 20/20 and I wanted to work the rare grid
>>> more than I wanted to simply run up my score.
>>>
>>> To answer the question though, In my case at least the answers is that
>>> yes, MS / digi efforts did in hindsight reduce my roving contribution.
>>> I'll put more thought into running these modes or not in future contests.
>>> All that being said I do like having the option to run these modes and I'm
>>> fine with the rules as they are. I just need to put more thought into how
>>> I choose to run my station.
>>>
>>> 73's Mark S
>>> VE7AFZ
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>>
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