01/23/2007 | K2QO/R The K2QO/R team again fought off the cold, snow and ice on an 8 grid rove that netted a new personal best score! Grids included FN's 14/24/23/22/12/13/03/02. What was supposed to be a super spot in FN23 on Saturday turned out to be a stinker and we were way down in Q's as we headed to FN22, Mutton Hill to finish the day. Up there we battled the QRM as we shared the mountain with K2TER/R.

Sunday was altogether different as we started with bright sunshine and 13F. The Q'came quickly. W2TAU in the front seat position could not write fast enough at times! Extra crazy was that in FN12 and FN03 we did not use our usual excellent locations. We stopped at N2KXS's to work her and WO2P, have cookies and cocoa, a laser Q and to warm up. But after TAU went in the house with the laser, all hell broke loose and I cranked out Q's with virtually every ham in Rochester as they just kept on calling. Her driveway is not the best looking spot but it sure played well.

On to FN03, we didn't have time to get up to our usual spot so we picked the closest FN03 spot to the grid intersection of 02/03/12/13 in hopes of just activating the grid for a mult. Again, station came out of the woodwork and we had a good run. Maybe these hilltops are over rated??

Next was the traditional Italian fest in Leroy with K2TER/R. After some pizza and Bears victory it was on to FN02wv where we had a record number of Q's boosting our score to well over 100k.

A couple of things that make a huge difference were W2TAU's improvements to 5.7G and tweaking 10G too.

Final Tally Info:

Mileage - 599.7

Fuel - 39.1 gal

Q's - 373

Mults - 119

3 Laser Q's in the cold at a grid intersection - Priceless

Many thanks to K2TER and K2DH for equipment loans that really helped too.

We are now at the point where improvements will take some real engineering time and $$. Note the nearly all HB antenna stack that is begging to be replaced by commercial aluminum! And for 222 we are still using the 5W transverter from QST a few years ago. RX noise does not even go up when the antenna is connected to it, yet we routinely make 200 mile SSB Q's with it.

Anyway, enough rambling. See you all in the spring sprints.

73, Mark -- K2QO