06/21/2008 | K4GUN/R Again, it was an absolute blast. I completely changed up my rover station and it really paid off. I ran essentially the same route I did in January and doubled the number of QSOs. The openings on 6 meters helped a lot, but the new beam antennas and amps also made a world of difference.

I started off on Skyline Drive in FM08. A storm rolled through after a few hours and that gave me the excuse to move off the mountain and on to other grids. By the end of the Sunday, I had already matched my QSO count for all of January. Sunday morning, I hit my first 6 meter opening. Through the day, I worked a lot of TX stations, plus OK, AR, LA, FL, IL, MN and several others. The highlights were getting Cuba and a double hop to Arizona. Doing all of this from the cab of my truck was a real thrill.

Day two started in the Virginia Tidewater area and then I headed North toward FM29 between Dover and Annapolis. I made a number of short stops on the way and finished the night near my QTH in FM18.

The only mishap for the trip was that my 6 meter Moxon was eaten by a tree somewhere in Delaware. I lost the reflector and side arms to the Par Stressed Moxon. Fortunately, I had an omni directional loop that got me through to the end. I missed the moxon though and have already ordered replacement parts. That antenna is awesome.

My co-pilot for this trip was my girlfriend. She was so excited that she went out and got her ticket and is already studying to upgrade. She had a great time and was an excellent logger and made sure everything went smoothly. She was a real asset for this rove. K4LIG is her call and it stands for "Life Is Good". I couldn't have done it without her and look forward to many more contests with her in the truck.

Thanks also go out to W4AD for the use of his 222 transverter, K3UI for helping me learn the rover routine back in January, W4SHG for the tower section and the huge amount of advice, WC4J for help setting up my web site and getting the APRS working, W1RT/R for a huge amount of e-mail help in planning this, all the stations that I worked and to W3SO for the last minute contacts on 222 and 432 that pushed me over 80 multipliers.

I'm pretty addicted to this whole roving thing. I'm planning different routes for September. I'll be looking for you! -- K4GUN