MOBILE ANTENNA SYSTEM


the WHIMPY antenna system (WHile In Motion Plus Yagis):

6 meter Par Electronics OA-50 horizontally polarized omni & 2 meter Par Electronics OA-144 horizontally polarized omni plus military surplus mast mounting system with homebrew welded base

STATIONARY ANTENNA SYSTEM


military surplus telescoping mast with hand winch

6m 3-el Yagi
2m Gulf Alpha Antennas 7-element Yagi

TR44 rotor

RADIO EQUIPMENT


military surplus radio shelter

6 meters:
    Icom IC-746
    100 watts

2 meters:
    Icom IC-706 original
    10 watts
    Mirage B1016G 160 watt amplifier

DESCRIPTION

This is the yearly ARRL-sponsored September VHF Contest. It starts 2 pm eastern time and runs through 11 pm the next day. All bands from 50 MHz up are allowed.

The rove from hell:

We started out with no digital camera so there will be no pictures for this contest effort. Unfortunately, we ran into several more problems even after three months of planning...when we arrived at our Saturday rover stop after driving an hour and a half, we discovered that another station had already set up at that spot and would be using 1500W on 6m and 2m with long yagis. As it turns out, he was not entering the contest as a rover which means he would not be leaving that location during the entire contest! So we made a quick decision to operate low power while mobile and head for the Adirondacks hoping to find a road that might lead up a mountain side. Believe it or not there were none. We finally did a rover stop in the parking lot of the Gore Mountain Ski Resort. Too bad we couldn't get to the top where the elevation is 4000 ft. Next we had a wire break off the rotor control box and we could not determine what part of the circuitry it came off, so there was no way to repair it even with our two soldering irons. So we lowered the antennas and loosened the rotor bolts so we could turn the beams by hand. Later we had trouble getting the rover vehicle to start, then after that the charging system began malfunctioning, and we had to make a mad dash for home but not without almost running out of gas in the middle of NY's outback. We got home at 3 AM Sunday morning with a smoking clutch on the rover vehicle.

There were no band enhancements of any kind on either band, but we were able to reach as far as Spruce Knob, WV--the K8GP VHF group in gridsquare FM08fq, as well as K1TR high atop Mount Washington, NH (6288 ft) in gridsquare FN44ig. In all, we worked 10 states & 12 grids, and we visited two grids with the rover vehicle & operated for about 7 hrs and 30 minutes total contesting time.

CLAIMED SCORE

6m

QSOs	QSO points	unique grids
20	20	12

2m

QSOs	QSO points	unique grids
14	14	8

2 grids activated: FN22 mobile, FN23 mobile and rover stop

TOTAL SCORE: 816