06/12/2002 | AA2YG The forecast for the weekend looked promising and all of the equipment was being loaded into my 1989 F150. The equipment consisted of 2 Icom 706s an amplifier for 2 and 432 a 5500 watt generator We planned to be active on 6, 2 and 432. The 3 element 6 meter antenna is mounted on the surplus military crank up tower (which has been modified to bolt directly to the bed of the truck thanks to my local welding shop) and lashed down with bungies it can actually be used as we are driving down the road! The 2 meter Cushcraft 13B2 and the 16 element 432 antenna are attached to the mast and then attached to a homemade wooden rack on the side of the truck. This allows us to set up in less than 30 minutes. All coax is attached to the antennas all that needs to be done is to attach them to the radios when we arrive. The 432 antenna can also be used mobile however the 13b2 cannot be used for 2 reasons (to mount properly to the truck it has to be polarized vertically and the front of the beam is very close to the roof of the truck) On friday night before the contest Lu and I made all the final adjustments and made sure we had everything we needed past experience taught us to bring extra everything if possible (Especially Coax and Jumpers!!) Everything looked good to go all we lacked was installing the seperation cables and Lus radio we decided to finish up on saturday morning. I was up bright and early and installed the remaining equipment checked swr on the 6 meter antenna looked great. Lu arrived around 10:30 Am we decided to leave at 11:00 so we would be set up in time. It is an hour drive to Mount Untsynthia which comes in at about 3400 feet ASL. We left at exactly 11:00 am and proceeded to the mountain we were set up at exactly 1:50 PM everything looked good to go. we decided to stay at this spot for the day and then decoided to hit 3 grids on Sunday. We ended up making 103 contacts from FN22 with one contact on 6 meters to EM12 near Dallas Texas. We packed up around 7:30 PM and decided to get a nights sleep. Sunday we left around 11:30 AM and went to a location near Remsen NY in FN23 we had very good conditions there and worked a lot of stations. We broke down at around 3:30 PM and then went mobile thru FN13 we only needed 1 contact to activate the grid and thanks to W2SWZ/1 we got it. We then proceeded to a location in FN12 near Cortland Ny and remained there the remainder of the contest with great conditions there our location came in at about 1800 feet. in all we ended up with 216 contacts with a score of 17,420 Points. -- AA2YG