06/29/2007 | K1UR For the third year in a row, K1NR and K1UR entered the "rover" category and had a successful Field Day operation from K1UR's 1963 Land Rover 109 Station Wagon. The truck is equipped with an Icom IC706 MkIIG with High Sierra antenna for HF and Diamond antenna for VHF, allowing operation on 80 through 10 plus 6, 2 and 440.

This year we headed to Prudence Island, which required a short ferry ride from Bristol, Rhode Island. Much of the island is public land and with few facilities is not very crowded. After some exploring we settled on the "old stone wharf" as our operating location, as this allowed for close access to salt water and a view to the west where we figured most of our contacts would be coming from.

The location seemed to help as this year most of our 100 QSOs were on 20m which in past years has been a difficult band for us as our mobile signal had a hard time being heard above the crowds. We heard a short 6m opening before the contest started, so were hoping for some excitement there like we had last year, but during the contest only worked a couple of locals.

Some distraction was provided by the Rhode Island Air Show taking place only three miles away at Quonset Point and directly in front of us. All in all a perfect day, with perfect weather only spoiled by ending too soon. -- K1UR