| "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the N2SLN rover team." |
About a quarter of the way into my hour and a half trip to the hilltop of choice, I suddenly realized that I forgot to bring the ladder. So instead of turning around to get it, I spent the rest of the trip thinking of alternate ways of getting this long-boom yagi mounted to the mast without the help of a ladder. Several fancy ideas came to mind, including standing on the roof of the van and lowering the entire assembly into the rotor, but ultimately none of them were as good as simply using the reflector element as a pivot point and tilting the antenna (with some mast attached) into position to meet up with the rest of the mast. Once the antenna was in the air, I did a quick SWR check and I could not get that meter to move. That was the best match I've ever seen on an antenna, and I admit to wondering for a moment if the meter was even working (although it was the built-in digital meter so I felt like it had to be working). To double check, I looked at the power meter during transmit and it showed full output, confirming the existence of a flat match.
I got a late start and missed out on the first half hour, but I still managed to rake in 14 contacts before the first hour was out. AB2YI/R showed up in the second hour with an impressive rover signal from FN02, providing a new grid--and the only signal I heard from that grid. The second hour ended up producing the most activity at 15 QSOs. In the third hour the activity predictably dropped off, but N3NGE came screaming in at 5x9 from 168 miles away and got my attention. The final hour brought the lowest number of contacts, but the best DX, which was KB1GXX FN42th (218 miles). I worked four stations in a row from FN42 around that time, and that contributed to making FN42 the most worked grid (7 contacts total). No sporadic-E developed during this sprint, but local activity levels were better than expected; the extra antenna gain helped me reach more of that activity than antenna systems I've used in the past (stacked Moxons and stacked 3-el yagis). As a result, my total distance worked was 1/4 of the circumference of the earth through the poles. The wx was very workable with low winds and moderate temperatures. The solar flux was 130, up from 92 the previous year. The official results are here.
BAND QSOs GRIDS TOTAL AVG DISTANCE
DIST (km) PER QSO (km)
---------------------------------------------
50 49 17 9,875.7 201.5
UTC CALLSIGN GRID DISTANCE (km) ----------------------------------------------------- 2331 N2PP FN13te 168.0 2333 N8RA FN31lu 144.1 2334 W1QK FN31gk 143.9 2335 W2LV FN21ob 148.7 2336 W3CRS FN10tf 281.7 2344 KA2ILJ FN22 32.9 2345 KB2KIR FN22fl 76.0 2351 W1ZC FN42dr 242.3 2352 K1BXC FN31tu 195.5 2353 N2UZQ FN32as 68.8 2355 NE1H FN42hu 271.4 2356 N1TQ FN42db 243.6 2356 KC2WLR FN32bt 77.0 2357 W2RG FN41np 321.5 0000 K2AXX FN12cs 263.3 0000 N1JEZ FN44ar 337.0 0001 WA1RKS FN32in 111.2 0019 K3TUF FN10we 275.6 0020 WB2RVX FM29mt 288.3 0021 K1DS FN20ie 251.5 0026 N3RG FM29ki 340.4 0028 WA2BAH FN32bs 74.3 0037 KA3HED FM29co 325.2 0047 W1AIM FN34uj 291.7 0049 K2CYE FN21sg 125.7 0051 KC2SFU FN22 32.9 0053 AB2YI/R FN02wv 292.3 0054 K2OEQ FN13ie 235.2 0057 K1ZE FN31uv 200.7 0106 K1TEO FN31jh 168.3 0108 KA2LIM FN12mg 192.8 0111 K3ISH FN21fo 116.2 0112 WA2MJP FN33gb 120.9 0113 N3NGE FN20bd 270.9 0114 NA2T FN21gi 134.8 0124 WA2DZD FN21ko 97.2 0125 WB2UYN FN20vg 238.6 0125 KC2TEP FN22ba 111.3 0128 KB3TNZ FN10sx 219.2 0129 KA2MCU FN32bs 74.3 0144 WA4GPM FN11og 219.1 0200 WB2OEE FN21tn 94.9 0204 WA1T FN43lk 314.6 0205 N1GLT FN42iw 279.8 0208 KB1GXX FN42th 350.2 0208 KA1R FN42ne 310.1 0210 KW2T FN42eo 247.7 0227 WA2LTM FN20rh 231.5 0242 K2SMN FN20oj 222.6
| "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the N2SLN rover team." |