09/01/2009 | KM3G/R This is the first time I've entered the UHF contest. I only have equipment for the 222 and 432 bands, so I wasn't expecting a high score. The contest was at the end of my family's vacation in the outerbanks of NC, so I thought I could get away with entering as a rover station and operating Saturday from FM25/FM26 all day Sunday on the ride home to southern PA. I set up a few skeds before the trip. I was only able to keep one of them due to the weather! Sorry! On Saturday, I planned to operate the start of the contest from Kitty Hawk at an altitude of 80 feet. (FM26) I then planned to scoot down to Jockey's ridge state park where the dunes are up to 90 feet high! (FM25EX) Murphy went along for the ride and dumped T-storms on me all afternoon on Saturday. It was a good plan on paper anyway. I did manage to set up on the 3rd floor balcony of the rental home in Duck, NC later that night. ( I made 3 contacts from the balcony. One was to K1TEO in trumbull, CT on 222 MHz! That contact was 377 miles out over the water! I was only running 20 watts into a 4 element yagi. That was pretty cool. My wife drove all the way home on Sunday so I could work the radio. Unfortunately, I was limited to a single HO loop on 222 and 432 on the van. I heard KN4SM a few times on the way home in multiple grids, but just didn't have the wattage and antenna gain to get his attention. It was fun though! At one point, we went up an overpass and his signal went came up at least 2 S units! There wasn't room to pull over though.

Kudos to the rover driver! Hopefully, I'll be able to operate more next year.
73 de KM3G -- KM3G