Murphy seemed to be out to get me in this contest. Although I managed to avert him at every turn, I have never had so much go wrong in a single contest.

I decided to try being a Rover in this year's contest in a limited sense - to operate from EN50 on Saturday and from EN60 on Sunday. To start out, on Saturday I got to my favorite hill in EN50 a bit late. When I got all the antennas out of the car, I found the last loop on both my 902 and 1296 loop Yagis had broken off. Too many times throwing them into the car took its toll, I guess. Missing that one loop on each antenna didn't seem to noticeably affect their performance, though. The power lead to the feedthrough on my 432 MHz transverter broke off. I used a clip lead to bypass that.

Conditions were not so great. 902 and 2304 MHz seemed particularly poor. I did make quite a few microwave contacts, though. Right after sunset on Saturday I worked W9SNR/R all the way through 10 GHz with signals getting better on each new band up. I wish I'd taken 24 GHz (I forgot it!) because we just might have made in on that band.

On Sunday I planned on operating from a hill in EN60af. When I got there, I found I was completely surrounded by 8-foot tall corn. I decided to go looking for a better spot. I finally found one an hour later, in EN60an. When I got set up, I noticed my triband dish feed had developed a crack where the center wire of the semirigid hardline supporting the feed attached to the feed. By using some tape from the opposite side of the feed to the bottom of the dish, pulling down slightly on the feed, I found it would make contact enough to work for the moment. Then I got reports that my signal on 2304 and above was chirping or swooping in frequency. That indicated I was losing phase-lock on the LO. I found that the coax braid on the SMA connector to my 10 MHz reference source had broken all the way around. I managed to use a piece of wire to temporarily fix that.

Conditions were moderate again on Sunday. I was not running much power on any band, with 10 watts or less on most. A lot of stations I could hear couldn't hear me. But I did work several stations over again plus a few new ones from that location. I made more microwave contacts with W9SNR/R and K2DRH.

Finally, after the contest ended I got everything packed up and left the site. I got about two miles when my right rear tire went "BANG!" and was instantly flat. I couldn't get the jack to fit under the car. I managed to improvise; I used a couple of my mast sections as a lever to pry the car up a few inches to get the jack under it. I got the tire changed but had to drive 45 miles on a donut tire.

I believe I worked most of the stations I worked last year in this contest. I got to give them two grid squares instead of one. I was told by several that they didn't work anyone else in EN60. At least the weather was just about perfect. No rain and virtually no wind. Now I have to fix all the broken equipment and hope Murphy is a little kinder to me next time.