Rovering New England

by Bob W1RH & Robert N1UVA

Yes, yes, yes, I know the newsletter editor is NOT a text generater, but this is one of the rare occasions the the Editor and his father will be a text generater.  This was just too fun and rewarding of a hamming experience not to write about.
The ARRL June VHF QSO Party was on the weekend of the 14th and 15th.  Robert, N1UVA, and I decided, way in advance of the contest, that it might be fun to set up shop in grid square, FN-51.  Why FN-51?  Well, most of this grid square is composed of salt water.  Only a very small piece of the grid is land and that land is a small sliver of the outer Cape.  Marconi Station is in FN-51 so it seemed a great place to operate.
We had the gear and antennas but needed a nice high mast.  One day I was admiring one of our microwave live trucks in the WBZ parking lot and thought to myself that it would make a great portable operating station.  The trucks include a 42 foot pneumatic mast, a 6500 watt generator, and decent operating space.  Well, it just so happens that we had retired one of these trucks and would soon be auctioning it off.  The truck would, however, be around for the contest.  This was GREAT!  Spend all day Saturday and Sunday in FN-51 it just doesn't get any better than that, does it?  It does!  This great portable operating station also has wheels and an engine.  Why not operate in the Rover category?  We decided to spend Saturday in FN-51 and Sunday in other grids.
Robert and I rigged the truck up with our FT-767, which has modules for the 6, 2 and 432 bands and a borrowed TS-790 which has 2, 432, and 1296.  We added our 150 watt amplifiers for 6 and 2 meters and a 220 FM mobile rig and found ourselves with a decent rover capable of operating on 5 bands.  Antennas included a 5 element Cushcraft beam for 6 meters, a 14 element Cushcraft Boomer for 432, a Hi Gain 14 element 2 meter beam, a 220 mag-mount vertical and a home brew 14 element yagi for 1296.

the top of the mountain.  The top of the mast would see the whole world, however, so the lower location was perfect.  Robert and I proceeded to assemble the antennas and hook up the equipment.  With the mast fully nested, and generator running, I turned on the radios, found the bands humming, and proceeded to knock off contact after contact.  After a half hour of operating mainly 6 meters with the mast down, we decided to raise the mast but found that a couple had set up shop on a picnic table right next to the truck.  Not wanting to disturb them with a very noisy compressor, I decided to continue operating with the mast down.  Another half hour went by and the couple was still there.  I told Robert that I couldn't take this any longer and decided to add to the noise pollution from the generator and turn on the air compressor so we could raise the mast.  Up went the mast and we continued to knock off the contacts as if we were a real big gun like Martin, AA1ON!  Everyone was LOUD!  Every once in a while, I asked Robert to sneak a look at the couple at the picnic table and assess their mood.  Then, the women walks up to the truck.  "Oh no," I tell Robert.  She says "My son would kill for a setup like this."  I say "Is your son a ham?"  She tells us that he is, indeed, a ham (N1XBV), a Scout, and a junior in High School.  Boy, did he miss out by not going on the picnic with his parents!  The couple leaves, we continue to make contest points and then I see a park ranger walking up to the truck.  "Oh no," I tell Robert, "he is going to kick us out."  Not so, however.  Seems the park ranger is a ham and wants to check out the "really cool" setup.  By the end of the day, we had been visited by several other hams.
Our contest point total was nearly 19,000 which is respectable for a Rover.  Robert and I each made about half of the total Q's .  Most of the QSO's were on 6, 2, and 432, but we also made several on 223.5 FM and 1296 SSB.  Saturday we were rare DX.  Sunday we were a Big Guns.  What a weekend!