06/17/2007 | W0ZQ/R For me the June VHF contest is a shake down cruise to prepare for the ARRL's August UHF contest (aka Rovermania). My goals for this years June contest were to test out the new 902, make sure the 2304 repairs were working, check out a couple of new rover spots, and to have some fun ! Mission accomplished on all fronts !

On Saturday I ran the four grids near the EN24/25/34/35 corner that is just west of the Twin Cities. I had one nice 10gig rain scatter contact with KC0IYT/R who was one grid to the west of me. Although 6m never showed much activity, all my other bands were working well including the new 902 and the repaired 2304.

On Sunday morning I drove down to SE Minnesota, the area we call the St. Charles grid corner, EN33/34/43/44, and played for the day. Propagation wise, the bands were very average with no real tropo for us. Nice 10gig contacts were made from EN33 and EN43 to K0AWU in EN37 as well as over to KM0T in EN13. Again, no real E's on 6m except for one or two pop's. As a one man rover, its hard to catch those very short 6m openings. 5:00 pm came along and I was 1.5 hrs from home, and with Monday being a work day and the need to reset Roverlite to standard operating mode, I called it a contest.

Thanks to the NLRS and CVCC for all the Q's and to the other rovers who were out and about. Thanks to the League for sponsoring a really fun event.

Don't forget, the next contest is NOT September, is the UHF Contest, aka Rovermania, August 4/5. Last year was our third year of UHF growth in logs, lets see if we can make it four years of growth - see you August 4/5.

73, Jon -- W0ZQ/R