W3DHJ/rover
VHF Contesting on S.E. Colorado's
High Plains
Sagas , Fables & Tall Tales 
After four years my VHF Rover web page was getting weighed down with
too much added material. It was becoming a real hog to load for some
visitors -- I'm sure. So, I broke a Big Chunk of it out and created
this web page: Sagas, Tall Tales, Anecdotes, Yarns, Whoppers and
Fabrications (the last not to be confused with the fabrication of my
homebrew 6M or 2M Halos. HI!HI!)
ARRL June VHF 2007 --
The Eagle
In June, 2007, I had an absolutely surreal encounter with an eagle.
I was parked to the side of
a
r e m o t e
dirt road in DM87.
The eagle came down from the heights to about 5 feet off the road about
200 feet out in front of me. He proceeded to glide down the center of
the road towards me. Nary a wing flap the whole time. As he glided past
me, I could have reached out the open window and grabbed him. No noise
at all in his passing. I swear he was staring at me as he passed. About
100 feet behind me, he rose in a thermal and reached 2-300 feet within
seconds. It was one of those pee-in-your-pants moments.
And, of course, I had my mic in my hand - - not my camera...
ARRL June VHF 2008 --
K8GP 2M QSO
The most memorable QSO of
this contest occurred
on Sunday morning. I always over-night
in my own bed -- the best motel in the 4 grids I normally trawl
through. I
had plans to go back out 'early' on Sunday. But, I stayed way out
in
DM87 fairly late on
Saturday night, and I just could not
throw myself on the floor that easily the next morning. So, it was 8
A.M. when I was getting ready to drive off.
I got in the car and turned on the rig to see if "all systems are
go!". I heard this tremendous signal low in frequency when the rig
came on. I tuned down and BINGO!, there was
K8GP FM08 at 5/9+. I was positive
I hadn't work him on
6M from
DM78 on Saturday -- so I gave him a
shout
and he came back and we 'exchanged'. I started logging it and looked
more closely at the display on the
IC-706
to see what frequency we were on. The numbers looked
Real Weird! HOLY CRAP!! I'm
on
144.197!!!
The chatter I heard later informed me I had probably slept through
the best of the
2M E-skip.
sigh.......
In a later email exchange with
W3ZZ,
Gene told me: "It was the longest reported (
2M) contact at 2176 km
(1352 miles)."
Wowser! Little ol' me with 110W and two stacked, homebrew halos from my
driveway.
Check out
K8GP -
Grid Pirates:
http://www.k8gp.net/.
Serious contesters - those fellers.
CQ WW VHF July 2008
--
KK6MC/r
Duffey (on the left) along with his loving wife and driver, Virginia
(taking this picture) dropped in at
my
DM87 site during his 2-day
rove
from Hastings, Nebr. (
EN00) to
his home QTH in New Mexico (
DM65).
He was roving with a homebrew
6M halo
and a homebrew 3-el
2M Yagi on
a
12 foot mast. Six Meters was open at the time, and we probably lost
something like 100
QSOs from
DM87
between us while we spent 30-some minutes swapping lies. (Sorry,
guys!) This was my
first 'path crossing' with another rover, and it made my outing that
day a little more 'special'.
Visit
Duffey's
VHF Blog: kk6mc.blogspot.com
Let me explain here the covering on my windshield (on the car in the
back.) Summer temps out in this country can soar well over 100°F. I
made an
outside sun
blocker from a twin-bed-sized mattress cover. I cut off all the edge
material -- leaving just the pad. To hold it in place I close the car
doors on it and lift up and set the windshield wipers on its lower
edge. Works a treat! Of course, rovers in SUVs or trucks would probably
require the queen-sized version.
HI!HI!
ARRL June VHF 2009 --
KR0VER/r
On Saturday I went north to start the contest in
DM79 and then moved east into
DM89 before dropping down into my
usual quad of grid squares. As it turned out, Eric,
KR0VER was running the same route
before turning north. So, we ran as a "rover pack" out to
Colorado
Highway 71. Here we are just south of the DM89/DM88 line before
he
turned north and I continued south.
That's Eric standing outside the vehicle. And, that's Eric's dad
(also, Eric) doing the driving for him. What a dad!!
From the top down Eric has 2M, 6M (halo), 220Mcs, 432Mcs, and a cross
boom with 902Mcs, 1.2GHz, 2.3GHz, and 3.4GHz. For 5.7GHz and 10GHz, he
gets out of the van and waves a horn around by hand. At least thats
the way I think it all goes together...
Makes my lil' 2 band mashup in the background look wimpy.
Visit
Eric's VHF
Activity web page: www.kr0ver.org
Constructive
comments and/or
discussions:
Last
updated: 08-Jul-09 