Our team included Randy Wing (N0LD), Harvey Jones (W0HGJ) and George Mackus (AB0RX).  Our focus was on building points and multipliers by traveling with K5SRT/Rover.  K5SRT/Rover was manned by Ross Terry (K5SRT), Bob Kirby (K3NT), and Nick Farlow (KB0YHT).  All of the team members live in Oklahoma except for Bob Kirby who lives in Plano, TX and George Mackus who lives in St. Louis, MO.  Bob and Ross are relatively new to mobile VHF contesting.  George Mackus decided to participate last minute, he is new to mobile VHF contesting, but operates portable in most VHF contests.  More details about out our teams, team members, our rover equipment, and our participation in the contest (pictures) can be found at our website:  www.OKRover.info

Preparation:  We set operational goals for the contest in June 2018 after the VHF contest:  Compete for highest UNLIMITED ROVER score in the Midwest, introduce new friends to VHF contesting, and to have a good time.  With these in mind, we set out to add 33cm radios and antennas to our rovers.  Up until this contest, it had taken between 4 and 5 hours to just mount the antennas on the rack.  I redesigned the rack to allow it to be added and removed in about 5-10 minutes.  (Thanks K2EZ for the idea!)  I also built my own master set of power switches to the equipment.  Knowing that we had new VHF mobile contesters along, we planned well in advance of the contest – we had a 51 page plan – about three pages for each grid circle we planned to activate, a number of “coordination plans” on how we planned to run frequencies, coordinate, and operate for the duration of the contest, and a number of maps that just showed the hams we expected to work from each grid circle.  We have developed a database of over 260 Mid West VHF hams that we have “profiled” for their station setup and contact information – this was all laid into our plans to make it available as we pulled into a new grid square corner – so that we knew who would be out there trying to work us.  We shared our itinerary (see photo 008a) with these fellow VHF contesters.

Pre-Contest Setup:  We positioned ourselves for the contest by traveling from Oklahoma City, OK to Dodge City, KS on Friday and learned to work together as a rover team and a rover group.  Friday evening we had dinner together and walked our detailed route planning for the next day.  Saturday morning, before the contest started, we spent some time sightseeing at Dodge City Boot Hill museum.  We learned a lot of the actual Dodge City past, and it was wild!  (See photos 001 – 004)

General Contest Observations:  Six meters was not open along our route during the entire contest, with only a few contacts being made.  There was no large scale VHF opening that we detected our entire course – We were able to work up to about 250 miles without too much trouble despite the conditions – by the use of our high gain antennas.

Our Rover Equipment:  The contest was busy requiring all three operators in each vehicle to keep up with the 562+ contacts!  Loops kept us active during the intervals between grid corners; gain antennas helped us dig out our long distance contacts.  We covered the following bands: 6m, 2M, 1.25M, 70cm, 33cm, 23cm.  We covered the modes SSB, FM, CW and digital (FT8).  George led operations with the gain antennas, Harvey led the 6m digital and overall logging responsibilities, and Randy drove and operated at the grid square corners on our handheld and mobile radios.  Our team had 2 computers running N3FJP VHF contest software, networked, front seat and back.  We operated a Yaesu FT-736R, a Yaesu FT-847, a Kenwood KW-D710, and an Alinco DJ-G26T for 900 MHz.  We had ~8-10 ft gain antennas on 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, and 23cm.  We had dual loops on 2m and 70cm, and a single loop on 6m.  We also operated an FM vertical on 2m and 70cm.  We had a 200 watt amp on 2m and 100 watt amps on 1.25m and 70cm. (see photos 005-006a)

Contest Day 1 – Saturday:  Dense fog greeted us (see photo 007) Saturday morning of the contest, undoubtedly bringing a little morning VHF enhancement that unfortunately burned off!  We started the contest at 1 PM at the intersection of DM98, DM97, EM08 and EM07 north of Dodge City and SW of Jetmore, KS (see photo 009).  Inevitably, working the first grid square as a team took longer than we anticipated.  So we were already behind schedule! 

We then traveled to the intersection of DM99, EM09, DM98 and EM08 (see route plan photo 008a) SW of Wakeeney, KS.  Along the way, Ross-K5SRT discovered an intermittent 6m receive problem that the team diagnosed and repaired with a brief stop near Ness City, KS (see photo 010). The dirt roads were wet and muddy from the heavy rain that fell over the past few days – but nothing that our vehicles couldn’t handle. (See photo 011) We made up a little time here by prioritizing getting back on the road as fast as possible.

Turning east, we traveled to the intersection of EM09, EM19, EM08, and EM18 about 10 miles ESE of Lincoln, KS.  On our way, we traversed a county gravel road that had less gravel than dirt - Jaguar Rd (see photo 012).  This area had seen some rain and the road was very wet and muddy.  As we traversed to the much more heavily graveled road our brother rover had taken (Iron Rd) on the south side of the dividing line between EM09/EM19 and EM08/EM18 we encountered about 5 inches of mud that nearly kept us stuck for the night.  After much mud removal at two different truck stops (see photos 013 and 014), we finally had achieved enough wheel balance to continue at our normal highway speeds.  We arrived at our night stop at about 1:00 AM and set in for the night about 2:30 AM.  Many thanks to our overnight host!

Contest Day 2 – Sunday:  We awoke about 7 AM, coffee’d up, and got on our way a little later than we intended, but we got enough sleep to get us through the day!  We traveled to the intersection of EM18, EM28, EM19, and EM29 SW of Topeka, KS.  We warmed up our operational pace faster than the day before!  We had a rural Kansas meeting at this grid circle – see photo 015.

From there we traveled to the intersection of EM18, EM28, EM17 and EM27 just outside of Virgil, KS (see photos 016 and 017).  Our careful planning at this site really paid off – hilltop operations at all 4 grids that offered us contacts in Wichita, Topeka, KC, and Tulsa! 

Along the way to the next grid circle, we were able to pick up many additional contacts.  Arriving at the grid circle at EM17, EM27, EM16, EM26 SW of Caney, KS and bordering Kansas and Oklahoma we learned that this corner is located in some pretty good hills (planning faux pas).  However, it didn’t stop excellent contacts on all six bands we carried!  We were also fortunate enough to work many FM contacts and USB contacts in the local area – which we had carefully coordinated with before the contest!  We were exceptionally happy to work rover to rover OVER the top of a 75 ft hill – the 900 MHz gain antenna came in handy after all!  The other thing we learned is that just because something looks like a public access road on a map – doesn’t mean it is… the path into EM16 was all gated and locked as private property.  Still we did make some good contacts and the time we gained helped make us LESS behind schedule!

After this intersection we headed to Turkey Mountain on the SW part of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  As always, Tulsa awarded us with many local contacts and of course we were able to make up for the EM16/EM26 contacts that we were unable to achieve near Caney, KS.  George was able to work WQ0P on all bands except 33cm (900 MHz) from atop Turkey Mountain. 

With time running out, K5SRT/R headed down to the inner grid circle (in low land) of EM16, EM26, EM15 and EM25, where we completed the contest.  We didn’t get all 12 combinations, but we achieved 10 of the 12 before the contest expired.  We were all in very good spirits despite us being 2 hours from home and it being 10 PM at night on a Sunday!  (See photo regarding score 021)

Post Contest:  We stopped at a truck stop near Chandler, OK on the way home and took some pictures of our rovers/team members (see photos 018-020).   Arriving after midnight Monday morning in Edmond, OK, we disassembled our teams.  Most of us took Monday off and recovered…  In the morning, George took off for St. Louis – a 7 hr drive home!  Bob Kirby took off for Plano, TX – about a 3 hour drive home.

We don't remember the number of times at gas stations and fast food places that we were asked if bad weather was moving in.  We did have some very interested questions and good spirits from these encounters – we enjoyed sharing our hobby!

We had a great time operating together!  We spent the drive home talking back and forth on 2m FM and discussing our lessons-learned.  A number of operators have recommended improvements and feedback on our operation that we will take into account for our future operations.  Thanks to all of our contacts during the contest – in the future, we will be changing tactics – more on this to come.