02/01/2010 | WB2WIK/R My first try at "roving" was the SS. I participated as part of the Southern California Contest Club rover "team," which consisted of 11 vehicles roving all over southern CA.

SS weekend began the day after the longest and most fierce set of storms experienced in 40 years here. 5-1/2 days of rain, right after installing my "rooftop" station on the 17th! Great.

Worked ten bands 50 MHz - 10.3 GHz in a "small pack" of just W6YLZ/R and myself roving northern grids, while a larger pack of nine rovers roamed the more southern and eastern grids. Our two "packs" were actually never closer than 100 miles apart at any time but completed contacts with each other on most bands including 10.3 GHz from three of our northern grids roved (CM95, CM96, DM06). We did not have as much luck at our first stop in CM94 over the 175-mile path to the other "rover pack" down in DM13, and worked only some of them on 432 MHz and below.

Tropo was excellent Saturday night in the San Joaquin Valley and signals over a 110-mile path on 1.2 GHz through 10.3 GHz were so strong they were "meter pinning," with the very strongest signals on 10 GHz!

Spent time Sunday afternoon just roving a hilltop or two and trying to work as many stations as possible. At that point, our "main pack" was too far away (200 miles over a mountainous path) to work, but they kept making contacts and I understand "most" of our hardware actually worked on most bands, despite the week-long deluge.

My first SS rove: 439 Qs, 1811 Q points, 86 grids worked, 6 grids activated. Caught a cold Saturday night, sneezed through that and Sunday: Used 40 gallons of gasoline and two boxes of Kleenex! -- WB2WIK