It was tough finding a spot to work this year.  My home QTH is behind a hill which blocks the north.  I ended up halfway up a mountain just north of Waymart, PA. 

I finally managed to put 50 through 1296 together and onto the van!  AND IT WORKS!  That's pretty cool.  I put together the W1GHZ transverter for 1296.  I had an old driver amp and amp module and was able to measure about 8 or 9 watts out at 1296.  That into a Directive Systems looper and away I go!

Setting up antennas when you're alone is always difficult.  I managed to find a pretty effective way of doing it though.  You can see in the pics, the bike rack mount on the van.  I had a rotor plate welded to it and then mounted guide bars from the roof rack for a second attachment point.  The mast leans over, but during testing, I found that it was impossible to hold up by myself.  I am now the first on my block to have a winch mounted to the roof of my van.  It raises and lowers the mast quite nicely.  My wife made me take it off when I'm not operating a contest.  The box on the roof is the amps/preamps for 903 and 1296. 

I had some difficulty with my 6 meter, 2 element beam.  It doesn't like all the abuse I've given it in the last few years, constantly pulling it apart, transporting, and putting it together again.  I finally pulled it down and rigged it into a simple dipole for 6 meters.  That worked great!  I quickly found out that almost everyone in the contest was on 6 and the other bands were all but abandoned due to the massive 6 meter band opening.  

I am now proficient enough in CW to kluge through a contact.  I made one contact with a guy up in Mass on 222.  I could hear his voice, but he could only hear me on CW, so I switched back and forth until the contact was made.  That was pretty cool. 

I made only one contact on 1296 and 903, but the numbers are improving! 

73 de KM3G

Tyler