Wally WØPHD and I have enjoyed our 10Ghz operations in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota the last number of years so we "did it again". The day before I headed west, Jim KØMHC posted that he was going to put up his 10Ghz system at the 130ft level on his tower. Jim is in EN26ha and should be workable from all of our rove if his gear was working. That would give us 50% more stations to work!! "New blood", you have to love it!
Jim is not new to 10Ghz but he would "just" be fixed now instead of portable. Work it did! We started our contest with him 5-5 SSB on a 268km path.Dennis NTØV and VE4MA were also active for the entire day (Saturday) since this was to be a single day rove for me. I had to return home Saturday night. We had a hot dry day, with temps near 90deg and very light breeze once in a while. Conditions were never as good as the first Qs before 8am local and we worked mostly CW all day. We operated from 11 locations as a team and I operated from an additional 3 locations as I returned home. It was nice to be able to provide EN27 to Jim and Dennis for new grids as I departed "The Valley". Our contacts from the 11 locations averaged 200km
(Left)KØAWU calling NTØV on CW mid day in the heat. We were beginning to show the effects of the sun by this time. (Right) That is Wally WØPHD now working Dennis as well. I run about 800mw to a 18" modified DirectTV dish and Wally runs almost 2 watts to the same type of dish/feed. These systems have served us well.
No other stations around this year, so we would set up work the 3 guys tear down and do it again over and over. We used 144.260 SSB for coordination for
all of our QSOs. The 6elem "Cheap Yagi" and the old Yaesu 290R with the 80w Mirage brick did it again. It is very nice to be able to coordinate via "Amateur Radio"!!
Beautiful weather for a late September 10GHz rove in North Dakota. The temp
topped out over 70deg, so sure better than what we have had the last several
years out there. Conditions were excellent for the first location and then
tapered off to normal quickly. We still had several 300km QSOs with K0MHC and
one almost 300km long with Barry VE4MA from our last location near Fargo. Wally
and I operated from 11 locations for this weekend too. Most of our activity
was on the North Dakota side of the river. We had a few sugar beet trucks out
and about since the harvest was underway.
Murphy visited us several times, but we survived. Everything from batteries to GPS ... In each case the problem was solved quickly and no Qs were missed.
We had fun and enjoyed the contest as well as the great weather.
Bill K0AWU
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