CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 2002
ROVER CATEGORY






ANTENNA EQUIPMENT

    2 meter 4-element yagi

    single 2 meter squalo 1/4 wave above car roof

    1/4 wave 6m whip on trunk lip mount






RADIO EQUIPMENT

    Icom IC-706 original

    Mirage B1016G 160 watt amplifier







DESCRIPTION

The CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 2002 was sponsored by CQ Magazine. This is a yearly 27-hour contest (6m/2m only) which runs from 2pm Saturday until 5pm Sunday one weekend in July. AA2YG would be busy all weekend, so we decided that I would run the show under the AA2YG/R callsign. The normal rover vehicle was not used since it is "under construction" for the September 2002 VHF Contest, so I used my personal vehicle instead. I visited 3 grids--FN12, FN13, and FN22, but I only made 2 QSOs from FN13. Using only a mobile whip on 6m was very frustrating, and there were occasions where I would have picked up another QSO if I had something horizontally polarized. Fortunately the good weather allowed for easy rovering. There was weak E skip on 6m Saturday afternoon, but none Sunday. In all, I reached 6 states and the Canadian province of Ontario. The longest distance reached on 6m was 1051 miles (1691 km) and on 2m was 268 miles (431 km). On my 2m loop, while visiting FN13, I did hear W4/ON1CFX/R. At that time, he was rovering on top of Hogback Mountain, Virginia in FM08 (3380 foot elevation), and that distance would have been 318 miles, but signals were too weak to complete a QSO. It took me several transmissions just to copy his full callsign as QSB created band conditions that cycled between favorable and barely readable.







POINTS SUMMARY

BAND	QSOs	 QSO	 GRIDS
		 PTS

50	 11	 11	  10
144	 10	 20	   9
___________________________

TOTALS	 21	 31	  19


        Claimed score = 589        








LOG


          FROM FN12:


CALLSIGN	GRID	TIME	BAND
==============================
AB8DY		EM66	1840	6M
N4ION		EM62	1852	6M
WA2BPE		FN12	1857	6M
W4NTI		EM73	1902	6M
KB2YVC		FN12	1913	6M
W4ZRZ		EM63	1932	6M
W4OZK		EM74	1936	6M
KU4IU		EM54	1954	6M
K5RPD		EM35	2011	6M
K1TEO		FN31	2035	2M
VE3KZ		FN03	2046	2M


          FROM FN13:


CALLSIGN	GRID	TIME	BAND
==============================
K2ERG		FN13	0104	2M
K2AN		FN02	0115	2M


          FROM FN22:


CALLSIGN	GRID	TIME	BAND
==============================
K1TEO		FN31	1918	2M
K1TEO		FN31	1920	6M
WB1AUV		FN32	1923	2M
W1RZF		FN42	1923	2M
W1XX		FN41	2020	2M
KB2KIR		FN22	2046	6M
KB2KIR		FN22	2050	2M
K5MA		FN41	2056	2M







Professionals are predictable, it is the amateurs who are dangerous.