Dave’s 5th VHF Rover Adventure

The September ARRL VHF Contest, Sept 14-16, 2024

In hopes this post inspires others…

This was my 5th outing as a VHF/UHF Rover.  A Rover is a mobile station that run a route throughout Maidenhead Grid Squares (A grid is approx. 70×100 miles or 1 deg latitude x 2 deg longitude).  Scores in the VHF contest are generally based on contacts x grid squares.  As a Rover, I have the gratifying role of providing multiple grid multipliers for others as I drive through less common grids across Texas.

This is addictive and fun and it fits in the DNA of ham radio: learning, testing, experimenting, fixing, and improving.

Below is the route I took (RED=Sat, GREEN=Sun)

Site location pre-planning is essential.  Arguably this is the most fulfilling for aspect of this process.  There’s hardly anything more satisfying than discovering a planned location that propagates well.  I’ve poured countless hours on Google Maps trying to find optimal stops where I can conveniently park the car to make effective contacts. 

Each of my locations are carefully selected for easy access from the main highway, free of RF thirsty vampires (warehouses, buildings, trees), elevated as high as possible, have no low hanging branches to avoid snagging my antennas, and safe from congested traffic. 

Google Maps works so elegantly, since I can invoke actual Street Views.  At the comfort from a chair at home, I’ve “walked” down many highways looking for dirt access shoulders, side streets, or vacant lots.  I also use Texas Elevation maps to find candidate spots that have higher elevation than others.  Ultimately, you never know if you’ve found a good spot.  Many times, its either marginal or it stinks.  It’s a constant process to take mental notes and find better spots for the next time.

My setup improves each time.  Over the course of several Rover experiences, I’ve now grown my system configuration from a modest one radio exciter using 3 antennas and plywood mounted Radio Shack TV rotor, to today’s configuration:  a robust tubular steel mini tower on the roof guyed with 120 lb.’ pull suction cups using 5 antennas (4 steerable, 1 static), and a robust Yaesu G450 rotor control system with a DX Engineering thrust bearing.

My setup consisted of:

What I improved for this latest outing:

1. Additional ferrite chokes on coax to tame RFI corrupting the PC when 2 radios are transmitting
2. Added a 2m Par Omni antenna for local contacts
3. Simo 2m and 6m FT8 operation while in motion
4. A new 222 MHz band capability
5. An ICOM IC-9700 replacing my KENWOOD TS-2000 for easier setup, QSY on the fly, and operation
6. Additional car window shades on driver and passenger side to keep the temps cool.
7. Refining 2 instances of N1MM and WSJT-X at once on single 15″ screen and micro-PC
8. Improved techniques to log, set bearings, and travel.

Saturday had a good start- meaning everything was working fine with no issues.  At the last minute, I decided to start off near Smithville so I could park at one of my favorite hills in EM10.  There I made contact with Ron K5LLL who later become my best friend throughout the journey, as he tracked me on aprs across all the grids except one- only because he needed to grab breakfast and feed the cows. 

Ron has an impressive QTH setup and is a well-known ham in the area.  I was fortunate that he was enthusiastically supporting the contest and gave me 4 instant contacts at each location, on 2m, 70cm, 1.25m, and 6m.   Only a few months ago, a mini-tornado blew down his tower antennas, but luckily and miraculously he got back on the air within a few weeks – and in time for this contest.

So, it was another hot Texas weekend, but my new Amazon sun shields for the driver and passenger windows worked GREAT. 

Each site location produced fairly good results except for Copperas Cove EM11 which I somehow overlooked that it was in an RF sinkhole.  Overall, my route planned was good except for one flaw as I somehow set my route plan 1 hour short.  So, I adjusted along the way and parked for the night around midnight at the Super 8 hotel in Stephenville.  Note to self: “find a better hotel, this one had sticky bed sheets”.

Early rising had me out of the hotel by 5AM to hit the planned sunrise in Weatherford.  Most participant of the contest are just getting out of bed, so I always try to get a good start of the day by working some of the early risers.

It’s still yet to be fully proven, but I think I’ve found a sweet spot of a rare grid, good location, and just late morning enough for hams to switch on their radios- at a dirt road hill in Mineral Wells owned by an oil company.  For the 2nd time in a row, I’ve had lots of luck working across Texas here.

Later in the day I spotted at a new spot at Decatur which was a pre-selected lonely dirt access by Google Maps.  The app had me parked in front of a locked hunting property and next to a lonely, abandoned mattress (Texas’ version of rural littering).  Guess I could have taken a hillbilly road nap on it, but I powered forward instead.

At EM23, as I was making QSOs, a fellow and his wife pulled up beside me and tapped on my window.  I figured it was another curious Joe who wanted to know if I was a “storm tracker”- a comment I get a lot.  But turns out he introduced himself as David WM5M.  He said he had to stop and say hello, since he lived just a quarter of a mile further down the nondescript dirt path, modestly hidden from the main road.  Funny who you meet along the way- that’s the 2nd casual ham I’ve bumped into from a random Rover location.

Further along the day, as I turned in to get gas, I noticed a tapping of loose metal.  Upon inspection I saw the 6m Moxon antenna had come apart and its loose end was hanging down the side of the van.  Luckily, I packed a lightweight 6′ ladder in the car and climbed up to fix it- again, getting another onlooker asking what my contraption was ontop of the car.  As far as I can recall, I hit some low hanging tree branches in Austin, and that likely loosened up the antenna.

Near the end of my journey, a big thunderstorm crossed my path near Leona.  Once again, my damaged 6m Moxon had come apart and needed repair.  With fearful thoughts for being a human lightning rod, I reluctantly got out the aluminum ladder, climbed on top of the roof, and fixed the antenna. 

As a favored request by my journey-long friend Ron K5LLL, I bypassed my last planned grid stop at Madison and headed directly south to Northwest Houston, in Cypress.  Ron needed EL29 as a grid multiplier and I owed him that courtesy because of his efforts to work me throughout the day.  Per original plan, I had not intended to activate EL29.  Using my knowledge of the area, which skirts nearby my younger daughter’s home, I ended up at the dead end of a new building community named Bridgeland.  I found a great dead-end construction site, and successfully gave Ron his needed grid QSOs on 6m/2m/70cm/1.25m.  The storm had passed, and I made a few nice moonlit photos for my final grid stop for the weekend. 

Somewhere along the way, I believe, something venomous bit me and left me a weird 1″ skin scar souvenir on my left forearm.

Reflecting on the event, this was my most sustained and successful Rover attempt.  Most everything mostly worked despite my FT817 blanked out display at times, drift on my 222 MHz transverter, and the broken 6m moxon.  6m sporadic E usually provides an abundance of out of state contacts, but for September, none of that happened so scores were understandable low for everyone.

A surprise was how well 222 MHz worked.  This band sustained the lowest noise, and highest signal strengths each time I worked Ron across Texas.  Too bad all the major manufacturers Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood exclude this band in their VHF/UHF radios.

The other observation was how poor Houston represents in this contest.  Seems all the VHF/UHF/Microwave enthusiasts are in Austin, San Marcos, Dallas areas.  Why Houston doesn’t have a high frequency presence is mysterious.

Do I have a list of improvements for the next go?  You betcha!

I’m very tempted to add 1296 MHz capability for the next one, and I’m now getting somewhat interested in 10 GHz.  I’d love to add more power but that means a rework of the car power distribution system…but arguably one need to walk before running, eh?

Here’s some misc photos:

My handy tracking and cheat sheet on my driver side visor:

Inside the cockpit: 

Yours truly:

Final metrics

73 Dave W5OC