2005 ARRL August UHF Contest
08/08/2005 |
N6ZE/ROVER
N6ZE, TRANSCON ROVER, Once Again Went Coast to Coast.
QSO Rate: 1 QSO/430 miles
N6ZE began the UHF Contest from the 11th floor of a downtown Baltimore Hotel (FM19), flew to Atlanta (EM73), flew to Ontario, CA (DM14), and got home in Thousand Oaks, CA (DM04) at 3:45 AM PDT on Sunday.
From FM19, a mobile in Baltimore was worked, FM18, & FM29. During the first hour of the test, W3VD/b was the only signal noted on 432.1SSB/446FM.
I then flew (I'm a co-pilot at a large airline which has a Greek letter as a name) to Atlanta. I spent 45 minutes on the catwalk outside my employer's ramp control tower with my FT817 & whip antenna, some 125 feet above the airport ramp. From 8:30PM until 9PM, I called CQ in vain and heard nothing!. However I did get stand in the darkness to smell the exhaust from a Chinese restaurant's kitchen and jet fuel, listen to large Pratt & Whitney and GE engines, and contend with very loud audio QRM from the taxiing aircraft. I finally decided to 'try' CW by keying the microphone's up/down buttons. W4WA (EM84) answered immediately with a tremendously loud signal. We switched to SSB and I subsuquently worked K4KAZ (EM73) too.
I landed in Ontario very late and despite posting that I'd be QRV from 1AM - 2 AM, nobody was around when I actually drove from 2AM until 3:30 AM! So much for DM14 as a countable QTH.
After I got up on Sunday, I made 2 QSOs from DM04 before the test ended.
Conclusions: Activity was low from Coast to Coast, at least on 70cm.
When I retire in a couple of years, I'll miss the fun of operating from non-rare locations in conjunction with my employment. I think that I have operated from almost 2 dozen different hotels, control centers, & city parks in the past decade. -- N6ZE
QSO Rate: 1 QSO/430 miles
N6ZE began the UHF Contest from the 11th floor of a downtown Baltimore Hotel (FM19), flew to Atlanta (EM73), flew to Ontario, CA (DM14), and got home in Thousand Oaks, CA (DM04) at 3:45 AM PDT on Sunday.
From FM19, a mobile in Baltimore was worked, FM18, & FM29. During the first hour of the test, W3VD/b was the only signal noted on 432.1SSB/446FM.
I then flew (I'm a co-pilot at a large airline which has a Greek letter as a name) to Atlanta. I spent 45 minutes on the catwalk outside my employer's ramp control tower with my FT817 & whip antenna, some 125 feet above the airport ramp. From 8:30PM until 9PM, I called CQ in vain and heard nothing!. However I did get stand in the darkness to smell the exhaust from a Chinese restaurant's kitchen and jet fuel, listen to large Pratt & Whitney and GE engines, and contend with very loud audio QRM from the taxiing aircraft. I finally decided to 'try' CW by keying the microphone's up/down buttons. W4WA (EM84) answered immediately with a tremendously loud signal. We switched to SSB and I subsuquently worked K4KAZ (EM73) too.
I landed in Ontario very late and despite posting that I'd be QRV from 1AM - 2 AM, nobody was around when I actually drove from 2AM until 3:30 AM! So much for DM14 as a countable QTH.
After I got up on Sunday, I made 2 QSOs from DM04 before the test ended.
Conclusions: Activity was low from Coast to Coast, at least on 70cm.
When I retire in a couple of years, I'll miss the fun of operating from non-rare locations in conjunction with my employment. I think that I have operated from almost 2 dozen different hotels, control centers, & city parks in the past decade. -- N6ZE
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