08/06/2008 | W0ZQ/R Well, that was fun. During last years contest, aka Rovermania IV, I was damp, cold, and had the car heater on and propagation was subpar (being very kind here). WHAT a difference a year makes.

For Rovermania V I repeated my same route as last year. Saturday afternoon and evening was spent at the St. Charles grid corner in SW Minnesota, or EN33/34/43/44. As the evening came on, the tropo continued to improve. It did not extend a long ways, at least for me, but it was very good over the medium range with S9 SSB signals on 222 through 10 GHz ! Easy eight band sweep were made with KM0T at about 360 km, six band sweeps with K2DRH at about 290 km and five band sweeps with K0AWU at about 360 km. I was able to work NT0V, EN08, on 222 CW at over 600 km while mobile ... that was fun. Around 10:30pm local I worked W9FZ/R up through 2304 with S9 SSB at about 220 km. I had a big smile on my face listening to Bruce working hard to handle his pile-up on 432.

Sunday morning found me just west of the Twin Cities at the EN24/25/34/35 grid corner. By then a cool front had moved through and propagation had dropped but I was still able to work K2YAZ in EN74 on 222 at 600 km. K0AWU (EN37), KB9TLV (EN45), K9CVC (EN44), N0KP (EN34), K0MHC (EN26), NG0R (EN25), KM0T (EN13), K2DRH (EN41), KC9BQA (EN63) along with others kept me very busy until the very end. Many thanks to the rovers: KC0P/R, N0HZ0/R, N0UK/R, K0HAC/R, N9TTX/R, W9FZ/R, WB0LJC/R, and KC0IYT/R. Rovermania lives !

That was fun.

Don't forget, send in your logs. -- W0ZQ