August is not a contest that I generally go out for whole hog and this year a family vacation was scheduled over the contest weekend. What to do? Build the Lowe's Loops for 432 from a recent QST and run one band while mobile from wherever we were on the road. My XYL got some more time behind the wheel and I got to play radio.

It turns out that that the start of the contest was somewhere on the road between Cincinnati and Van Wert, OH. Conditions were absolutely aweful and I wondered if my gear was working. I barely even heard anyone on the band. After dinner on Saturday in Van Wert, I found a decent spot in the clear near some wind turbines and called CQ for hours. Did not work one station from that spot. 

Sunday was better. We were mobile by 0830 local and heading to Cleveland. Ten stations were worked while on the road, but only one or two had really good signals. Only one station was worked from more than one grid, that being K8JA. Got him from EN80 and EN91.

The bottom line? We activated 3 grids and snagged 12 QSOs. Was it worth the effort to outfit the rover with gear and suffer the fuel economy loss with the roof rack attached? YES. If I had not taken the gear, I'm sure I would have found out that 432 was rocking with record breaking tropo. 

The station was a Yaesu FT100D with a 100 brick putting out about 70W to a 4-stack of loops.

73 and see you all in September for a well organized full bore rove.