06/25/2002 | KT1VT/R My 12-year old son (unlicensed) and I roved together for the first time, and we had a great time! We made a few mistakes, and learned a lot about roving in New England. We got a late start on Saturday, and didn't get to our first stop on Mt. Kearsarge (FN43) until 15 minutes into the contest. By the time we got everything set up, it was already 1900Z (mistake #1 - get going on time!). Contacts came quickly, though, except on 6M, where every QSO seemed to be a struggle. After an hour I finally figured out that I had never switched 6M on my FT-817 to the rear, instead of front, antenna port - so we were using the 2M brick and antenna on 6M! Once that was fixed, 6M became much easier! Mistake #2 - double check *everything*!

Because we had a commitment to be at my brother-in-law's house around 8pm Saturday evening, and because of our late start, we had to skip our next planned stop in FN42 and drive straight through to FN41. At that point we weren't set up to operate while driving so we didn't make any contacts for about 2 hours (mistake #3 - always be able to operate on some band, some mode, while mobile!).

Once in FN41, my brother-in-law and I drove out to a Boy Scout campout that was going on at a favorable radio site. For the next couple hours I was able to contest and demo Ham Radio for several older scouts and adults. I couldn't believe the number of questions I answered between (and during!) QSO's! It was a blast, though.

Sunday morning found us prospecting for sites in FN31 - nothing panned out until late morning, though. Mistake #4 - don't do site surveys *during* the contest! The last site we tried in FN31 was surprisingly good, and we made a number of nice contacts, including Stephen's first contest QSO ever (he finally got the courage up!).
There was a bit of tropo going on, I think, because K8GP was very loud on 2M and we worked easily with our 100W and 2el Moxon on 2M.
We tried 432, and I could just hear them calling us but we weren't able to complete.

Leaving FN31 we set up for mobile operation on 6M with the '817 barefoot and used the 5/8 wave 2M vertical as the antenna. Managed to work a couple Q's in FN32 while mobile, but the poor antenna and only 5W was not enough to raise anyone from FN33, not even W2SZ. Time was running short for us, so we kept on driving for home in FN34, where we managed a couple more quick contacts on 6 & 2M for our last grid activated.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, and we'll be back in September for another go! -- KT1VT