06/17/2008 | K2QO/R Another nice contest sponsored by ARRL. My rover partner Paul, W2TAU and I did an abbreviated 6 grid rove to get more time at a choice operating spot to start the contest. It seemed to work, but we did sacrifice 2 grids.

This time someone ordered up e-Skp for 6M on Sunday. Thanks! We worked the Caribbean and Bermuda with only 100W to a Par Omni up a whopping 15'. May other stations in FL and the midwest were contacted too. Superior secret rover locations helped too :-)

This effort featured a brand new rover wagon, a 2008 Saturn Vue, and a new-to-my-rover Mac Book Pro for logging. This meant that Mr. Murphy could have a Field Day on VHF weekend. But, FWIW, he did not bother us at all. (He did visit one fellow RVHFG rover.)

After all our hard work of repackaging the whole shebang to fit, we fired up the radios late Friday and to our amazement, nothing happened. The wipers didn't turn on at random, the engine ran fine, even the built-in electronic compass indicated the proper heading.

The only iffy construction detail turned out to be no big deal. My Saturn dealer provided me with a mechanic to answer questions after I picked up the SUV in April. Simple stuff like how does the back seat come out, where is there a feedthrough from the engine to the cabin and how much power can the cigar outlets handle? As for the latter, I told the mechanic that I needed serious power to run a custom battery charger in the back of the vehicle to keep two deep cycle cells topped off. He assured me that the 20A power outlet was up to the task. Not wanting to run cabling front to back due to time constraints, I bought it. Well, our charge rate was severely limited by what was undoubtedly some small gauge internal car wiring. It could maybe handle 20A but it only allowed the DC-DC HB charger to run at a max of 5A. The previous rover worked at 10A+. Oh well.

Our score was down a bit from previous years due to dismal local activity, but the stations that were on seemed to have more bands and propagation was just good enough to take advantage of that situation.

The auditors are out to lunch right now, but our raw log shows:

302 Qs with 574 points and 139 Mults while covering 6 grids for a total of 79,786. Not bad for the maiden voyage of the Red Rover. September will be here before you know it, so get everything tuned up and ready. If I can swing it, I may even try roving in the ARRL UHF contest. -- K2QO