The roof rack and related antenna mounting stuff was still more or less in place on the Trooper from the UHF contest, which helped. Also, in the last month, I diagnosed the problem with my TS-790's 70cm section. It turned out to need a replacement Mitsubishi power brick (the driver for the final amp).
Derek WA0ZTI published an article recently on a PIC-based battery voltage monitor for 12 VDC batteries. Steve took it upon himself to build one up for the deep-cycle battery we use in the rover, and it worked out very nicely. I suspect we'll tweak on the software a bit to make it better suited for use in the rover, but even as-published it was a nice addition to the equipment in the Trooper. And Steve built it in the metal box from a package of Penguin Mints, which added to the coolness factor.
Saturday morning, Steve arrived at my place. He started out by borrowing some test gear to finish making the battery monitor work while I sorted out the antennas and cabling. My big addition this time around included a piece of plywood to stack the rigs on that let us go 2-wide on the rigs instead of ending up with a really tall stack in the back seat. It worked out nicely. I also relocated the 6m loop forward in an attempt to improve the SWR, but it didn't really work. I clearly need to do something different. I had planned to work on this, but work intruded. Oh well.
After the success of our strategy of leaving everything together on the mast for the quick move from DM89 to DM88 in the August UHF contest, we decided to try operating that way for the whole contest this time. So, instead of using the Portapol, we switched back to the 15 feet of Radio Shack steel mast. We mounted the antennas on the top 5 foot section, which gave us 10 feet across the top of the trooper, with all the antennas hanging down behind when we were in motion. This worked out marvelously, since we could pop the duct tape holding the assembly on the Trooper in about a minute, and turn the whole mess vertical and lock it into the bracket in about another minute. Tear-down was almost as fast, turning the mast horizontal and duct-taping it in three places to the roof rail assembly.
There's only one thing we got wrong. And it turned out to be a real mess. The coax bundle from the antennas was routed in through the back door of the Trooper, keeping it from closing. So, we closed it as well as we could and duct-taped it to keep it that way. That works fine on paved roads... but by the end of the rove, we had sucked an immense quantity of dust into the vehicle, covering everything! By the time we got home, Steve and I were both desperate for showers... Next time, if we do this sort of thing again, we need to either route the coax out through one of the windows so that we can close the rear door, or come up with some sort of quick-disconnect arrangement for the cables. Further study is in order!
We had a bunch of problems getting all the pieces together Saturday morning, most centering around a couple of U-bolts that somehow had nuts frozen to them requiring application of a hacksaw to resolve... and the fact that even though I knew we needed another feedline, I somehow got the connector combination we were going to need wrong in my head. The result is that we were a couple of hours later getting rolling than we had planned. In fact, we both got frustrated enough that if we hadn't been egging each other on... we might have just punted.
Once we got rolling, it got fun pretty quickly. We fired up the dual bander on the drive out to DM89, and Steve worked a dozen or so contacts while we were in DM78 and DM79, all on FM simplex. Once we got set up in DM89, we managed to make good contacts on every band we were running pretty quickly, which lifted our spirits substantially. It was frustrating not having my 2304 gear ready for the contest, but with working gear on every band from 6m to 1296, it was hard not to have fun!
Once things started to slow down in DM89, we packed up and headed east. We made a quick stop at Arby's in Limon for sandwiches, but otherwise just put the hammer down and drove out to Kansas. Since we were running late, we missed working KB0CY from DM99, which was too bad. In fact, when we first set up a few miles south of Interstate 70 about 10 miles in to Kansas, we weren't sure we would find anyone to work. Eventually, we found N0LL, and then N0KQY found us, and between them we managed to scare up enough folks back in Colorado to make it a worthwhile stop. I gather the weather in the Denver area combined with it being dinner time conspired to reduce the number of folks available to work us.
The only real hassle in DM99 was that the location we picked was lousy with mosquitos! The number of them that ended up clustered around the dome light would have given Indiana Jones a shiver... Fortunately, we didn't get eaten *too* badly. While we were in DM99, we had a couple locals stop to see what we were up to, all of whom apparently decided we were harmless enough!
Just about the time it started to get really dark, we relocated south into DM98. It was seriously dark with just a tiny sliver of moon by the time we got set up, and there were some thunderstorms south of us lighting up the distant sky. We worked a reasonable number of contacts, but realized we were going to lose more folks to sleep if we didn't hustle on over to DM88.
We dropped south to US 40 and headed west just over the grid line into DM88, and parked on a dirt road just across the railroad tracks from the highway. We managed about the same number of contacts we'd had in DM98, plus picked up a couple of DN70 contacts which was a fun way to finish up.
It was a long drive back to Black Forest. We got to my house at about 1:48am local time. It took a few minutes for Steve to snag his stuff and head off, then I took a long shower and was in bed by about 2:30.
It was different. That was fun. We worked 6 grids instead of the 4 we've worked previously. We had a good time chatting with N0LL and N0KQY "out their way". On the other hand, this clearly was not the way to run up a big score. Since we weren't after a big score, that isn't a big deal... but a modest score is a reflection of a modest number of contacts, and we'd have been happy if there had been more folks to work, particularly on the higher bands!
N3EUA CONTEST LOG FOR: ARRL SEP VHF
===============================================================================
Name of Contest: ARRL Sep VHF
Call Used: N3EUA
Call of Operator: N3EUA KC0FTQ
OPERATING LOCATION
Grid(s) Activated: DM78 DM79 DM89 DM99 DM98 DM88
Location Name: Eastern Colorado
ARRL Section: Colorado
Entry Type: Rover
===============================================================================
Valid
QSOs Pts/QSO QSO Pts Mult
50 MHz 10 1 10 4
144 MHz 33 1 33 5
222 MHz 15 2 30 3
432 MHz 33 2 66 6
902 MHz 1 3 3 1
1296 MHz 9 3 27 4
Total
All Bands 101 169 23
GRIDS ACTIVATED 6 Rover Scoring Used
N3EUA CLAIMED SCORE: 4901
===============================================================================
I have observed all competition rules as well as all regulations
for Amateur Radio in my country. My report is correct and true
to the best of my knowledge. I agree to be bound by the decisions
of the Awards Committee.
Bdale Garbee N3EUA KC0FTQ 13.09.1999
4390 Darr Circle
Black Forest, CO 80908
===============================================================================
N3EUA CONTEST LOG FOLLOWS:
column 1: frequency (MHz) column 6: complete exchange sent
column 2: mode column 7: complete exchange received
column 3: date (dd/mm/yy, UTC) column 8: indication of new multiplier '*'
column 4: time (UTC) column 9: points claimed
column 5: call of station worked
note: Incomplete & Dupe QSO's in the log are listed with - 0 - points.
N3EUA CONTEST LOG FOR: ARRL SEP VHF
432 FM 11/09/99 1947 KB0CY/R DM78 DM78 * 2
432 FM 11/09/99 1948 N9KC DM78 DM79 * 2
144 FM 11/09/99 1949 N9KC DM78 DM79 * 1
144 FM 11/09/99 1950 KB0CY/R DM78 DM78 * 1
144 FM 11/09/99 1952 N0UVR DM78 DM78 1
432 FM 11/09/99 1953 N0UVR DM79 DM78 2
432 FM 11/09/99 1953 KB0CY/R DM79 DM78 2
144 FM 11/09/99 1954 KB0CY/R DM79 DM78 1
144 FM 11/09/99 1957 KA6IRT DM79 DM78 1
432 FM 11/09/99 2000 KA6IRT DM79 DM78 2
432 FM 11/09/99 2010 AB0IH DM79 DM78 2
144 FM 11/09/99 2011 AB0IH DM79 DM78 1
222 FM 11/09/99 2034 KB0CY/R DM89 DM78 * 2
144 FM 11/09/99 2035 KB0CY/R DM89 DM78 1
432 SSB 11/09/99 2044 N9KC DM89 DM79 2
1296 SSB 11/09/99 2045 N9KC DM89 DM79 * 3
222 SSB 11/09/99 2047 N9KC DM89 DM79 * 2
144 SSB 11/09/99 2048 N9KC DM89 DM79 1
50 SSB 11/09/99 2049 N9KC DM89 DM79 * 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2053 N0KQY DM89 DM98 * 1
50 SSB 11/09/99 2056 KB0CY/R DM89 DM78 * 1
50 SSB 11/09/99 2056 W6OAL DM89 DM79 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2058 N0LL DM89 EM09 * 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2058 W0AH DM89 DM78 1
222 SSB 11/09/99 2101 N0LL DM89 EM09 * 2
222 SSB 11/09/99 2101 W0AH DM89 DM78 2
432 SSB 11/09/99 2102 N0LL DM89 EM09 * 2
432 SSB 11/09/99 2103 W0AH DM89 DM78 2
1296 SSB 11/09/99 2105 W0AH DM89 DM78 * 3
50 SSB 11/09/99 2107 W0AH DM89 DM78 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2113 K0RZ DM89 DM79 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2114 N0VSB DM89 DM79 1
144 SSB 11/09/99 2115 N0POH DM89 DM79 1
222 FM 11/09/99 2116 KB0CY/R DM89 DM78 2
222 FM 11/09/99 2118 N0VSB DM89 DM79 2
432 SSB 11/09/99 2121 N0VSB DM89 DM79 2
222 SSB 11/09/99 2123 K0RZ DM89 DM79 2
432 SSB 11/09/99 2123 K0RZ DM89 DM79 2
902 SSB 11/09/99 2125 K0RZ DM89 DM79 * 3
1296 SSB 11/09/99 2129 K0RZ DM89 DM79 3
50 SSB 11/09/99 2131 N0VSB DM89 DM79 1
1296 SSB 11/09/99 2132 N0VSB DM89 DM79 3
432 SSB 11/09/99 2140 KA0ULN DM89 DN80 * 2
144 SSB 11/09/99 2150 N0UGY DM89 DM79 1
432 SSB 11/09/99 2153 N0UGY DM89 DM79 2
144 FM 11/09/99 2209 WD0HHQ DM89 DM79 1
144 FM 11/09/99 2210 KA0DEH/R DM89 DM79 1
144 FM 11/09/99 2212 KC0AMO/R DM89 DM79 1
432 FM 11/09/99 2213 KA0DEH/R DM89 DM79 2
432 FM 11/09/99 2213 KC0AMO/R DM89 DM79 2
144 FM 11/09/99 2214 AB0IH DM89 DM78 1
432 FM 11/09/99 2214 AB0IH DM89 DM78 2
144 SSB 12/09/99 0040 N0LL DM99 EM09 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0047 N0LL DM99 EM09 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0049 N0LL DM99 EM09 2
144 SSB 12/09/99 0113 N0KQY DM99 DM98 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0115 N0KQY DM99 DM98 * 2
1296 SSB 12/09/99 0124 N0KQY DM99 DM98 * 3
50 SSB 12/09/99 0127 N0KQY DM99 DM98 * 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0130 N0VSB DM99 DM79 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0131 N0VSB DM99 DM79 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0133 N0VSB DM99 DM79 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0135 KC0COU DM99 DN70 * 2
144 SSB 12/09/99 0139 KC0COU DM99 DN70 * 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0140 W0AH DM99 DM78 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0141 W0AH DM99 DM78 2
144 SSB 12/09/99 0141 K0RZ DM99 DM79 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0141 K0RZ DM99 DM79 2
50 SSB 12/09/99 0149 N0VSB DM99 DM79 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0241 N0KQY DM98 DM98 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0242 N0KQY DM98 DM98 2
50 SSB 12/09/99 0243 N0KQY DM98 DM98 1
1296 SSB 12/09/99 0243 N0KQY DM98 DM98 3
144 SSB 12/09/99 0248 N0VSB DM98 DM79 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0250 N0VSB DM98 DM79 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0251 N0VSB DM98 DM79 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0258 K0RZ DM98 DM79 2
144 SSB 12/09/99 0306 N0LL DM98 EM09 1
432 SSB 12/09/99 0307 N0LL DM98 EM09 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0308 N0LL DM98 EM09 2
1296 SSB 12/09/99 0314 N0LL DM98 EM09 * 3
144 SSB 12/09/99 0412 N0KQY DM88 DM98 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0413 N0LL DM88 EM09 1
222 SSB 12/09/99 0413 N0LL DM88 EM09 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0414 N0LL DM88 EM09 2
1296 SSB 12/09/99 0416 N0LL DM88 EM09 3
432 SSB 12/09/99 0417 N0KQY DM88 DM98 2
1296 SSB 12/09/99 0418 N0KQY DM88 DM98 3
50 SSB 12/09/99 0419 N0KQY DM88 DM98 1
50 SSB 12/09/99 0421 N0LL DM88 EM09 * 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0423 W6OAL DM88 DM79 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0423 W0AH DM88 DM78 1
144 SSB 12/09/99 0424 N0VSB DM88 DM79 1
222 SSB 12/09/99 0425 W6OAL DM88 DM79 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0426 N0VSB DM88 DM79 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0429 KC0COU DM88 DN70 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0429 W0KJY DM88 DN70 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0431 W6OAL DM88 DM79 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0431 N0VSB DM88 DM79 2
222 SSB 12/09/99 0438 W0AH DM88 DM78 2
432 SSB 12/09/99 0439 W0AH DM88 DM78 2
On 2m, we ran my TS-790 through the inactive DEM TIB to a Cushcraft 4-element yagi.
For 222, we ran John's IC-735 and DEM transverter, and his K1FO yagi.
For 70cm, we ran my TS-790, a Mirage amp making about 100 watts, and a Landwehr preamp mounted near my Rutland Arrays K1FO yagi.
On 33cm, we ran the TS-790's 2m section through a DEM TIB to a DEMI transverter making about 10 watts into a homebrew Kent Britain-style yagi.
On 23cm, we ran the TS-790 making about 10 watts into a homebrew Kent Britain-style yagi.
Power was from a 27DC-form-factor deep cycle battery for everything, feedlines were a mix of low-loss RG-8'ish sized cables with mostly N connectors. We logged on paper, and post-processed the logs using the VHF-DX software for Windows.