01/26/2017 | K2EZ/R By far the best part of the contest was overnight 6m opening into Europe. Around 2am local time (0700 UTC) when nobody else seemed to be on locally, it turned an otherwise dead time into a welcome boost of Qs and multipliers. I didn’t hear other stateside stations working Europe. Perhaps the few up were on digital modes with heads buried in computers and didn’t even notice the opening?

Oh wait, 2am local time I was sleeping. That must have been a dream. Okay, well sleep was good so still a contest highlight.

In the real world I didn’t encounter any 6m openings. As others have stated, conditions seemed somewhat flat. In some ways this isn’t fun but as I see it, it puts a premium on finding stations and getting thru as many bands as possible with the station once initial contact is made. It is this aspect of the VHF contests I have come to love, the hopping thru bands, and largely differentiates this from HF contests.

Unlike September and last January where 6m signals seemed to get eaten up by the land leaving 2m as dominating over 6m, this contest 6m seemed to rival 2m. In fact, there seemed to be pretty good balance between the bottom four bands. If I could get someone on one band, I had a pretty good chance of getting that same station on any of the four bands.

As for my rove, I had little time to prepare. I arrived home from two weeks of travel just two days before the contest. I was exhausted and my heart really wasn't in it.

I didn't feel I had the energy to put in a good effort. Thus I decided to make it an easy effort staying in the northeast and operate from just 8 grids. Something similar to my August UHF contest effort.

As such I started close to home and hoped to end not too far from home. Little did I realize in the planning stage just how different it would end.

One change I decided to make last minute was how to handle the start of the contest. This has been something of a problem for me. Not having a real big signal compared to most fixed stations, and often being in a non-obvious bearing, I have found it sometimes difficult to get the attention of bigger stations. Sometimes planned skeds for the contest kickoff have worked but I didn't have any arranged.

With my start point having a reasonable view of New York City I decided to spend some time calling on FM and see what I could scare up. My logic being that few would be trying FM and those on FM who aren’t really contesters wouldn’t be tired of contesters yet. I wouldn’t ignore SSB but I would regularly call on FM.

As for results, I worked more stations on FM in the first hour than total FM contacts I have gotten in entire contests. Perhaps 50% of my Qs the first hour were stations on FM.

Between the FM contacts and an otherwise good start with SSB, I had my best first two hours ever amassing 90 contacts. Given that I normally have topped out at about 270 contacts, getting one third of my usual total in just a couple hours seemed incredible. In fact the 90 contacts exceed the total number contacts I had in my first rove two years ago.

The initial exuberance got somewhat dampened when I headed off towards my next stop. I got a sudden reminder about the weather. Earlier in the day when I headed out to my start location there was heavy fog but as I got to the hilltop I found myself above the fog/cloud layer and in the sun. It was quite a nice day up there and I had forgotten about the dark grey day I had left behind.

As soon as I moved off site I was back in the soup. Visibility was quite limited resulting in lower driving speeds and it was impractical to operate on the move given site distances too short to allow for any attention to radio.

I had three more stops planned for Saturday but the fog delayed me to the point that I had to push one off till Sunday morning. My contact counts weren’t spectacular at either of the two stops, yet between those and contacts I did go thru some areas free of fog and get some contacts on the move. By the time I settled in for the night I added another hundred contacts to my total.

I started my day Sunday morning at 6am with fog still hanging around. Fortunately by around 7am this was starting to life. I had the leftover stop from Saturday to make plus two more pre-planned stops Sunday. So just a total of three stops to make and lots of miles to cover which was going to be easy with 17 hours of contest left.

Activity seemed to be very good Sunday morning and into the day. Each stop yielded about 30 to 40 contacts and with the fog dissipating I was back to being productive while on the move. By noon time my contact count had exceed my previous personal best of 290 Qs in the September 2016 contest. By the time I was ready to leave my last stop I was up to nearly 400 Qs. I was feeling energized!!

I was staring at almost 400 contacts in the log. My plan at this point at most was to go one more grid north to the next grid corner, but there was also 7 hours left in the contest. A large amount of time for such a small trek. I could do that and head home, get some good rest and be quite satisfied.

There was one problem however. My multiplier count was the lowest I ever had. Not quite to 50 mults. With so many QSOs could I let it go?

Up to this point, short of working a few stations in FN31, I hadn’t contacted a single New England station in another grid. Others were saying they were hearing few from New England as well. I had to believe there was activity up there, certainly up by Boston.

I just couldn't let it end there. Not with this start I had. I needed multipliers. The only obvious source for those was working stations in New England which was best insured by bringing myself up there. At the same time I could collect a few extra grid activation multipliers.

As I proceeded into New England, this effort was looking ill fated. There seemed to be nobody on. I can only recall four stations as I trudged myself up thru FN31, into FN32 and onto FN42. This is what I get for heading into New England while the New England Patriots were having an important game.

Fortunately the few stations on were enough to let me activate some of these grids to get the activation bonus, but two of the stations were in FN31 so they didn't add any multipliers and the third, in FN42, I worked only on one band.

At this point, with just a couple hours left in the contest, I was hoping the effort wouldn’t be wasted. I opted to turn south to get into FN41 and just prayed I could find someone to let me get activation bonus and then turn back for home.

It was during this run south to FN41 from FN42 when I happened upon Dale AF1T (or he found me). This made him the fourth station I had heard since I crossed out of FN31.

I was just about to leave FN42 and enter FN41 so I stopped. Dale and I worked each other on three of the four bands I had. We couldn’t quite make it on the fourth. This also added three more valuable multipliers to my total.

After we gave up on the fourth band I preceded another mile or so into FN41 and we worked the same three bands. Things were picking up.

Having connected with Dale, and having a means to find him, his promise to be active to the end, and his saying some other stations were active further north, I decided to backtrack north into FN42 and proceed across the grid to FN43 in New Hampshire. If nothing else, at some point Dale and I should be able to close the loop on the fourth band adding another multiplier and work four more Qs once I crossed into FN43 which would net me another multiplier for the activation.

With about 45 minutes left to go in the contest, and 30 minutes before I could get to FN43 the band suddenly came alive. A station comes back to my CQ. I say “don’t tell me, the Patriots game is over, right?” which got a laugh and a resounding yes in return. He was in FN42 and after we worked thru the bands I had filled in the three other FN42 multipliers I hadn't yet gotten.

I crossed into FN43 with 15 minutes left in the contest. At this point I worked Dale AF1T and a few other stations who I had worked while in FN42 and who were following my progress towards the new grid. By the closing bell I had added another 100 contacts and 20 multipliers.

All told I ended up activating 13 grids, made about 500 Qs and had 75 multipliers for a significant new personal best.

Dale AF1T was the person in the right place and right time to create circumstance for me to turn the already good rove into one that blew away my previous best. I can not thank Dale enough for his good timing and help.

Unfortunately now, the contest was over and I was just north of Manchester New Hampshire. I had a four hour dead head back to New Jersey after a early start for the day. With stops, and a nap along the way, I didn’t roll into my driveway till sometime 5am Monday morning local time.

All told I covered about 900 miles to carry me thru the 13 grids. Not particularly efficient. When I add the mileage getting to my start point and dead heading home after the contest I covered nearly 1200 miles.

It is with many thanks I owe the stations who follow us rovers as we move from grid to grid. That is part of what makes roving fun!! -- K2EZ