With W6IT, N1BKB, N6HC and W6TAI each operating a fixed station that covers all bands through 10 GHz, my job as a rover was easy. I visited eight grid squares and worked them on all possible bands in every grid square with just one exception where +20 dB. over S9 noise on 902 precluded a contact. The hard job was done long before this contest--building those all-band fixed stations. Congratulations to W6IT for building his excellent microwave station, the newest of the bunch.  We pre-registered our five-person team as "An Orange County Quintet."

Operating this contest was a last-minute thing.  We didn't decide to do it until the Thursday before the contest.  One thing that held us back was schedule conflicts.  N1BKB was unavailable Sunday and N6HC was hosting a dinner party Saturday evening.  Steve (N1BKB) operated well past midnight Saturday, then went home for his Sunday obligations.  Arnie (N6HC) operated later than he should have on Saturday, then rushed home to be a good host.  After his guests left, he returned to the station he was guest-operating at midnight--then returned again at 7:30 Sunday morning.

I started at the "Mojave convergence," over a 7,500-foot mountain ridge from the fixed stations in DM13.  I activated DM05XA first, then DM15AA, DM14AX and DM04XX.  Then I made the long drive to Gaviota Beach (west of Santa Barbara in CM94VL), arriving after 10 p.m.  I went next to Manhattan Beach (DM03TV), arriving there after midnight.  Early Sunday morning I drove to San Diego County to get on at Del Mar Heights (DM12IW) and ended the contest near Solana Beach (DM13IA).

There was interesting propagation.  The knife-edge path over the San Gabriel Mountains from DM13 to Mojave is always there 24/7.  But there was also spectacular tropo ducting.  The KH6HME beacons were rolling in to the mainland two days before the contest and they were still loud on 144, 432 and 1296 the Monday after the contest.  There were some trans-Pacific contacts on two meters, but apparently no one worked Hawaii on any band that counted during the 222 and Up Contest.  The tropo did make our contacts from Gaviota down the coast to DM13 easier than usual, but we missed the chance for 40,000-point contacts from California to Hawaii on bands like 3.4 GHz.

The attached photos show the four fixed stations and my rover plus two of the paths we worked.  Some of these photos were taken from PowerPoint presentations I gave at the Eastern VHF Conference in April and the Central States VHF Conference in July (the weekend before the 222 and Up Contest).