01/27/2005 | KI6CQ Decided to operate this contest from California, as a rover, mostly just for fun and also to help introduce a friend to ham radio.

Had sites prearranged on Laguna Mtn and Palomar Mtn -- but Murphy's law always prevails - the first problem was that my friend caught the sniffles. So we operated from his patio on a 400' mesa just E of downtown San Diego. He didn't feel like going to the mountains so I operated from the Palomar site alone on Sunday.

The biggest suprise is that the best DX contacts were on a stacked set of SQ-144 KU4AB loops -- not a popular 16 element 432 yagi. Was working into Santa Barbara from the residential San Diego QTH but not much further.

Murphy appeared again at Palomar as the site was blocked in on several sides -- and my eastern view which I had hoped was clear was knife edging over an adjacent higher ridge. Working a few contacts into AZ on the 2m loops in the last hour or so of Palomar Mtn site operation made it all worthwhile.

Next time I may forego yagis completely and try to rig up a way to stack 4 of the horizontal omni loops.

CLAIMED SCORE -- 728 [dont laugh]
Best Grids: DM12 (city) to DM04, and DM13 (mountain) to DM24 & DM33
The DX contacts were done on a stacked pair of SQ-144 KU4AB 2m loops.

-- KI6CQ