10/13/2008 | K3UHF K3UHF Rove for the Sept 2008 VHF contest.

Its always best to begin a contest from a god high spot and use the non contest time to get there. One of the best spots in the northwest is Marys Peak, at 4000 elevation in the middle of CN84. The Mountain has good exposure to the north and east, which is where most of the population is. There is a lower landing that faces south at about 3800 feet which has harvested southern multipliers in the south. However the long haul propagation was not there or the operators were not. On a good day you can see the ocean, I bet you can get into the tropo if its there. It takes about 40 minutes to get back to Corvallis or 50 minutes to I-5 from here.




The next stop was Bald peak state park in CN85. This is a location at 1700-1800 feet, west of Portland Oregon. You can see 5 mountain tops from there. I bet with some coordination one could use the 5 mountains to do a lot rock scatter on the higher bands. This location is about 10 miles from dense population and isnt subject to much noise. I have worked DN17 from here and CN 82 south from here in the past. This time it was Portland and Seattle/Vancouver BC.

Next we traveled to CN95 at Timberline lodge. This has good exposure east and south. However there is a big rock to your north. Strong Seattle stations knife edge over the top of the mountain on 432 and down. Others have been worked by bouncing off Mt Jefferson to the south and reflecting back north. In the past I have worked CM87 from here, but not this contest. Again the tropo was not there on Saturday, nor the gray line at sunset. Its good to be high at sunset.


Next we traveled to the CN 94/95 Line on HWY 97. There is no better place to drive for roving than the high plains of eastern Oregon and highway 97. Except for a few canyons, the take off angles are usually good. In the past I have done 200 miles at 50 watts and a M2 loop while going down the road. Im sure its on account of the other stations gear.

A couple hours spent on the line and the occasional change of grids kept things going until about 11 pm.

My partner then fell asleep and it was time to move on. Sometimes people follow me as I travel late at night. Apparently they didnt on this occasion. I drove down to the Biggs junction bridge and it was closed. I chose the 14 mile detour through DN05. I only harvested a couple of QSOs from southern Oregon who knew to listen for me. Everyone else was asleep at midnight.

I decided propagation got better and participation was done, so I moved west and back into DN06 until I found a rest area east of Yakima.

Some chatter from the east side boys woke me up around 5 am and I moved on towards the DN06/07 line at Frenchmen hills. I worked a few stations on 1.2 ghz from the side of the Columbia river in DN06. That was a good sign. We eventually got to the line and worked several stations for 2 or three hours from DN 06 and 07.



We then moved on to the ryegrass rest area for CN 96 and worked for about an hour.

We sped through CN97 and over the pass into the wet side of CN97. Most contacts were harvested on the road while on the east side and in a parking lot around Monroe Washington.

I figured my partner was getting bored and we stopped for brunch at Snoquamie falls.

We then did the customary route around CN97/98/88 and then moved on below the football game (for traffic concerns) and worked from a hill around the Seatac airport.

We skipped the trip up Pilchuck or Green Mountain, based on my partners 8 pm bed time.

We then moved on towards home and stopped at a couple of rest stops and viewpoints to harvest about 100 QSOs from the last 2 grids.

The end of contest activity didnt seem to pick up much, so we moved on to home and went QRT at 7:30, which made the XYL happy that my partner was in bed on time.


K3UHFs second opt. I would like to think its an home made antenna boom, but it turned into a cub scout walking stick.

To my surprise my partner did not complain much. Tried to help and learn, though Im not about to let him do all the logging. I did not do as much QSOs while moving as in the past, but he took notes when I did. I could even read them later, it was a start.
We also re-did the rover to make it take apart easy and re-assemble easy.
We mounted conduit to the head ache rack to hold antenna masts. We drilled and pinned them so we could quickly take them out if need be, to clear trees.



We got 18 mpg! Much better than the old GMC and no RFI from the diesel!


We got ram mounts to hold the computer and radio. It could hold the ft 736 as well, but it was shaky! So it went to the chair.


The amps used to ride in the back seat on other rigs. Now the boy does. So the amps were put in a truck box which I modified to hold 4 amplifiers and made it water tight with bulkhead adapters.


To my surprise we got away with just one Aux battery all connected to the 7 pin trailer plug.


The final racks. Paired loops 2- 432 on the ft 736R. A 6 meter moxon via the 400 wat TE amp. Stacked 2meter 3 el beams (wider is better on the road) on a 400 watt amp/ ft 897. Stacked 432 elk antennas via a TE 175 watt amp and the ft 897. A single elk antenna on 222 via the 120 watt Lunar amp and a switch. A 900 mhz looper via a kenwood 741 a and a 10 watt demi transverter. 1.3 looper fed from the ft 736R.
10 gallons of spare diesel.

In the end we worked 404 QSOs. Not a record, but participation was down out here, especially in Portland. -- K3UHF