06/13/2002 | N8UM This was my first attempt at rovering and I planned to operate from 5 grids. I downsized my old portable station from an Astro van and 2 sixty foot towers to a Saab 9-3 and a single 22 ft mast. My XYL, N4PXQ, was not excited when I ripped out all the leather seats from the family sedan and installed 5 wattmeters and an operating console.

The rig was a new TS-2000 barefoot on 6, 150 watts on 2, 220, and 432. DEMs xverters and 50 watts on 903/1296 and 15 watts on 2304. The TS-2000 is a great IF rig (outside of being deaf on 50 mhz).

GPS and GIS systems made it easy to locate 2 sites, one at 5300 asl in North Carolina (EM 75-85) and another at 2800 asl in Kentucky (EM86-87) that each had 2 grids accessible within a quarter of a mile of each other. My son, N4QCR, designed a program to locate the sites. The final site in EM 76 at elevation 2600 feet was easily accessible on the way home from Kentucky.

The wx forecast was perfect and I got an early start on Saturday morning. I set up on a National Forest Parkway without incident. Unfortunately the mountaintop location was not exceptional. Conditions were average and degraded to poor by 7pm Saturday night. I barely had 150 Q in two different grids, I either had a blown 6 meter preamp or the e skip never reached my mountaintop. I dismantled the antennas and headed home for 4 hours sleep before making the last 2.5 hour drive to the Kentucky sites.

The weather was even better on Sunday and my operating position was in the shade. The cliff that I was perched on had almost a 900 ft shear drop and the views were spectacular. I was able to set the antennas up within 2 feet of the edge, and the takeoff angle really played on 903-2304. Again, the conditions were only average in the morning and there was good enhancement to the northwest on Sunday afternoon on the UHF and microwave bands. Six was again a disappointment as I listened to K8LEE chugging along at 100 Q/hr. No contacts from K8GP above 432 was another blow

By 5 pm everything had dried up and I lost my enthusiasm. I skipped my last grid and arrived home at 10:30 pm. A pretty mediocre effort, but I learned that my antennas must be deployable a lot faster and I need to have a better 6 meter signal -- N8UM