Had a great time working stations all day on Saturday.  Activity is typically only a couple hours at the beginning of the contest here in Alaska because of the limited number of participating station.

But for the second year Ken, NL7HJ/R traveled from his home in Denali Park to the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula to rove from south to north all the way up near Fairbanks - about 500+ miles in the depth of winter in Alaska.  I am hoping Ken will write his own story for the soapbox.  This sparked activity all day.   Be sure to read NL7HJ/R's account of his travel as a rover in the midst of Alaskan winter!!

I set up on five bands 6m/2m/70cm/33cm/23cm but only worked the bottom three bands.  With Ken's roving we worked five grid squares on 144-MHz SSB with 50w and four 10-elem yagis.  On 6m I ran 125w and a 3-elem yagi and on 432 50 and a 26-element satellite x-yagi.  I used my eme dish to receive on 432 and although it is not high above ground we heard KL6M 70-miles north on 432 with S9 signals.

High SWR showed up on my 2m array just in time for the contest so I could not run my 100w amp.  I used a MFJ tuner to make my FT-847 happy.  I checked it late today and the SWR is now back to 1.25 - figures!

My score was 180 (not impressive by lower-48 standards but pretty good for up here (3800 AK hams in an area 2.5 times the area of Texas).  Probably not over 100 hams are set up for VHF SSB/CW in Alaska.  I worked six stations in the contest.

June is always fun because of the possiblity for 6m openings.

http://www.kl7uw.com/