06/29/2005 | K1UR This year K1NR and K1UR decided to do something different on Field Day and operate in the "Rover" (er, mobile) category. Well, we think of it as "Rover" and the photos should show why!

Our home club was operating in a field in the oppressive heat so we looked for a place that would be more comfortable--being mobile certainly offers more flexibility. The weather forecast for the Rhode Island shore looked great so with information on locations of state parks we headed out.

We ended up operating from Colt State Park in Bristol, Rhode Island, which turned out to be an ideal location. The park is so huge that it was not crowded and we were able to park near the shore, resulting in what proved to be a good RF location. Since we only had until sunset to operate (when the park closes) the goal was to make contacts on as many bands as possible, and that was a success, with QSO's on 75, 40, 20, 15, 6, 2, and .70. The High Sierra screwdriver antenna worked great on HF, surprisingly so on 75m, with the only disappointment being that we couldn't seem to get it to tune on 6m and so we missed what looked like a good band opening there (we did make one QSO even with the antenna out of tune). -- K1UR