06/24/2008 | N6NB/R More and more, roving seems to create a sense of community in amateur radio. These photos show a meeting of rovers--and a non-rover--in California's Mojave Desert. In the photo at left (left to right) are:
N6MU/R, K6MI (who operated with W6TE/R), KG6TOA/R (in rear), AF6O
and W6TE/R. Not shown is N6NB/R, who took the photos. We all met
in the desert to lend AF6O a 10-band "toolbox" station, shown inside the tailgate of his Ford Bronco. In the other photo, a second similar toolbox station is shown atop a rotor on the roof of an SUV.

Despite the road sign visible in the photos, the weather was NOT icy in the desert!

AF6O took the toolbox station home and operated from his garage in
Pinon Hills (DM14), with the whole setup resting on the Bronco tailgate three feet above the ground. As a fixed station operating at home, Jim worked rovers KG6TOA (in rover-limited), N6TEB (in "classic" rover), N6MU (rover-unlimited), N6NB (in "classic" rover) and W6TE (rover-unlimited) a total of 146 times at the Mojave/Bissell convergence, 76 km. from AF6O's home. The toolbox stations produced surprisingly good signals over that path.

I didn't get a photo of K6VCR, who used another of the 10-band stations and operated in the single operator QRP portable class on Mt. Soledad near San Diego, DM12. K6VCR worked N6TEB/R 30 times, spanning paths of up to 300 km. on 2.3, 3.4, 5.7 and 10 GHz, on his way to a very good QRP portable score. N6TEB/R, operating with KE6HPZ, also had a very successful weekend. K0DI and KF6YYV--an alumnus of these rover excursions--had a great multi-op outing on a nearby mountaintop. They worked the rovers mentioned here about 200 times on all bands through 10 GHz. Before the contest was over, we visited 15 grid squares and took part in a LOT of microwave activity. It was fun. -- N6NB