09/19/2008 | K2NUD/MM Oh the places youll go, Dr. Seuss said it right, There is fun to be done!
For me radio contesting is fun, and going to places to work as a team with friends makes it that much better. A few years ago I had a fun idea for running a contest as a team and I discussed with my friend David, K2DBK. I asked him if he thought it would be fun to go to an all water grid for a VHF contest. Although he said this was an interesting idea nothing ever came of the conversation, but we talked about it every now and then.

This year things changed and we got the opportunity to work as a team in this Septembers VHF contest in the all water grid FM39. My brother in law Captain Karl said we could use his friends boat, Maryleen, which was friendlier to antennas than his own boat. So on Saturday September 13, 2008, we made our way around Sandy Hook, New Jersey, south to grid FM39 near Lavallette at the Jersey shore.

When we got to FM39 about an hour later we setup the 2-meter beam and the 6-meter beam on top of it. We had them setup on 3 sections of 5-foot masts. To make them straight we had to wedge a life vest between the boat rigging and the bottom mast. As the boat started to rock we noticed the 2 and 6 meter beams were out of sync, sometimes more than 90 degrees. Captain Karl and David used duct tape and a grappling hook to tape the masts together so they would stay in sync. Since we were anchored we needed to manually turn the beams when we wanted to point in a specific direction.

Once we got all the antenna gear stabilized we started to call CQ and started to make some contacts as K2NUD/MM. When we told people where we were they were quite surprised and happy to try and work us on the two bands we had. We loved hearing the question, you are where? We were lucky enough to work several far away stations from our location, including some stations in FN00, FM18, FN11, FN12, and FN43. We found that the 9-element, 2-meter beam outperformed the 3-element, 6-meter beam while at sea. Some of the stations we heard clearly on 2-meters we could not hear at all on 6-meters, and the 6-meter beam was 5 feet higher. I guess 5 feet at sea level does not mean much.

Since this was the first time either of us tried to operate from sea, there was much to learn about it. Especially the way the antennas needed to go up and down. If the seas were heavy there was no way to take them down and I am afraid if we tried they would have ended up in the ocean. Also since I am prone to seasickness, my activities get limited as time goes on as I start to get dizzy. Dizzy or not we spent a few hours in FM39 giving the grid out to all that could hear us. It was fun!

Thanks go out to David, K2DBK, Captain Karl, Maryleens owner Art, and all the people who worked us to make the whole trip worth it.

Matthew, K2NUD -- K2NUD