01/21/2008 | KD5IKG AND KD5TDP We were an official rover this year! Last June we moved from Mississippi and Texas with three hams in the car during the contest, but did not turn in a log since my daughters and I were a family station and there were not category for us to submit under. We gave out a lot of points to everyone else.

This time we were a two person family station / rover! We had a stack pair of 2 meter loops and a 6 meter loop mounted on a trailer hitch assembly. We were late getting moving, packed sleeping bags, pillows and everything we would need if we were stuck in the backwoods portions of east Texas like we did in June when we drove an extra two hours looking for a motel because there were all full.

We quickly found out that we had high SWR on 2 meters which dropped us in power, Six meters was dead initially. Thank goodness that were had a couple of serious contest stations in the area or we would have had a long and quiet trip. Stopped by one of those fixed station to borrow an analyzer, got things back in order then hit the road again. Heard a few other rovers in a pack! Boy did they rack up the points! With radio problems and few contacts and the temperature below 30 F, we cut our planned grid route in half and headed home. A special thanks to the contest stations that made the trip with us!

We logged 450 miles and made 27 to 29 contacts each, not a great score, but since we live in an antenna restricted neighborhood, it was a great alternative! Look for us in June on the road again! -- KD5IKG