01/24/2006 | N5AC PLAN B

My 2003 Avalanche suffered a meltdown just before the holidays in December and the 4x4 transfer case died. A replacement was not available, so I got a rental car until it could be fixed. Just a week before the contest, I was notified that my Avalanche would not be ready for the contest. Having missed the September VHF contest last year to help with Kartina/Rita communications, I decided that I wasn't going to miss another contest! So on Wednesday, I rented a Chevy Trailblazer from an unnamed rental car company. It had just what I asked for -- a luggage rack and a 2" receiver hitch -- and just 650 miles on it... that wouldn't last long!

I headed to the dealership to recover all my antennas and equipment from the truck. I stripped antennas and radio equipment from the truck for three hours and headed back home. For two days, Dad, W5TX, and I installed equipment in the rental for the contest. In the Avalanche I have an 8D 400 Ah battery to power everything, but this and tapping into the car's electrical seemed both impractical and risky. On short notice, I considered using a battery and something to charge it, but I needed both 12v and 28v and the system in the Avalanche just wouldn't have worked in the rental. I decided to grab my generator and a rack and run the generators on the back of the rental. It worked great. I ran an Astron 60A 12v supply and a 50A 28v supply in the rental and all of my equipment ran off of one of these supplies. The Honda EU2000i ran like a champ (I brought a spare but didn't need it) and powered everything the whole weekend, even driving down the road.

I checked out my transverters just before the contest and found problems in 902, 2304 and 220. Al Ward, W5LUA, helped me locate the problems and get everything on the air -- thanks Al! Al also had a 5760 transverter he had used for roving and he let me take it out, giving me 10 bands (6m-10 GHz).

I had been having trouble keeping the LO in my 10GHz rig on frequency and it was driving me nuts. At the recommendation of Bob, WA5YWC, I contacted Goran, AD6IW, and got one of his PLO modules. It ran great -- I cooked it for a week before the contest and got it right on frequency and when I contacted W5LUA on 10GHz there was no hunting around for each other (well, we did hunt but we found each other right on channel, hihi). I am anxiously awaiting Goran's new PLO that is frequency programmable from a serial port.

Last year I had been discussing 10GHz antennas with, Harold, K5SKX. I said I wanted something onmidirectional that I could run mobile while I was driving down the road. Harold suggested that I might build a slot antenna out of a piece of WR-75 or WR-90 waveguide. I secured the waveguide and Craig, KA5BOU, milled the slots in the waveguide -- 12 in all. I road tested the antenna during the contest and it was AWESOME. I worked W5LUA and WW2R while driving down the road and it was neat. When I worked Dave, WW2R, it was raining and Dave said he heard both doppler and rain scatter on my signal. This was the first time I had a chance to work rain scatter... it was great. What a great band!

PLAN C

I have been working on a custom control system that runs all the transverters, the IF radio, etc. I got it installed and it worked great (see picture), right until RF got into it and killed the display!!! I had to code up a serial interface to the controller and use my laptop to control it. I spent about 20 minutes recoding everything while W5TX drove the rover. In the end, the solution worked and after a stop at the local computer store for a USB-to-Serial adapter, we were on the air.

We played pack rover with WD0ACD & K5FOG which was a blast. It's always great to travel around with other rovers and discuss what is going on with equipment and the bands.

I'd like to formally thank Al, W5LUA, for all the support and equipment help and for following me around the grids and my Dad, W5TX, for enduring another VHF contest with me!!

Just got through 10 grids this time: EM11, EM21, EM22, EM23, EM12, EM13, EM14, EM04, EM03, EM02

Equipment List:
6m - Icom 756 Pro III barefoot and M2 loop

2m - Icom IC-7000 and TE Systems 1452G (400W of power ... cant't be beat) and M2 7el beam

220 - Yaesu FT-857D IF rig, DEMI transverter, Linear Modulation amp 100W

432 - Yaesu FT-857D (2nd), TE Systems 4452G, M2 beam

902 - 857 IF, DEMI transverter, (m) Amp 250W, homebrew antenna

1296 - 857 IF, DEMI transverter 3W, M2 antenna

2304 - 857 IF, DEMI transverter, Spectrian amp 100W, Directive loop yagi

3456 - 857 IF, DEMI transverter, Toshiba amp 55W, Directive loop
yagi

5760 - 857 IF, W5LUA et.al. transverter, TWT replacement amp 13W, horn antenna

10368 - 857 IF, DEMI transverter 2W, homebrew slot antenna -- N5AC