08/10/2004 | W0JT The 2004 August UHF Contest, rumored to be the last one sponsored by the ARRL -- and the Northern Lights Radio Society decided that the contest deserved to go out with a bang instead of a whimper, with as much activity as we could muster for the event. Our plan of attack was called RoverMania! Over a dozen rovers from our club area planned to go out and activate many grids on many bands, while other club members planned to operate in the SOLP, SOHP, and Multi-Op categories.

(See our web page at http://www.nlrs.org/RoverPlans/2004-08/RoverMania.htm for more info.)

I planned to be one of those rovers, and you can see in the photo the rover station that I assembled for the contest. (The vehicle is new to me, and this was to be its maiden voyage as a rover.) Rotatable antennas, each 12 feet long, on 222 through 2304, and (not visible) a separate tripod-mounted dish for 10 GHz. But if I thought Murphy was my companion on my last major rove, I discovered he was only teasing with me back then. This time, I was running late with my preparations, due to other committments, and when I finally jumped in the vehicle to blast off, I found that the ignition switch had become jammed, and I could not move the vehicle an inch. It stayed parked at the end of my driveway until the Monday morning after the contest, at which time the tow truck came to haul it back to the car dealer for $800+ worth of (warranty-covered, thank goodness) repairs.

In the process of dismantling my home station, building the rover, dismantling the rover, and re-assembling the home station, I ended up with only 3 working bands instead of 6, and very little time to operate. But I did what I could to support the NLRS RoverMania event, and look forward to hearing stories from the others who participated. Hopefully, some of my NLRS colleagues had a bit better luck than I did, and will have some happier stories to tell. -- W0JT