01/29/2005 | KC0IYT This year's rove was almost abandoned the Friday before the contest, as a snow storm hit Minnesota during the day Friday. After discussing conditions with several people, I reversed my plans in order to stay on major roads since those would be plowed first. I only had to shovel my way out of one place: a park just north of downtown Minneapolis!

The activity level seemed a lot lower than in past January contests and I was the only rover in the area, when we usually have at least four.

Saturday I activated grids EN24, EN25, EN35 and EN34. I didn't feel well on Sunday, so I briefly activated EN34 on 10ghz and made a few more contacts on the other bands.

When operating, I raised the 6m antenna up to about 20' on a fiberglass mast. I transported the antenna on a crossbar of the the car mast so that I could make some contacts without having to set everything up.

I had problems with the transverters for 902 and 1296. I had switched IF radios since the last time I used them, and because of all the cold weather I hadn't done an on-air test with everything set up as I would eventually use it.

I have more pictures of my rove on my web page at:
http://reality.sgiweb.org/overby/ham/2005-JanuaryVHF/index.html -- KC0IYT