Amateur Radio Contesting at Multiple Remote Sites is called Roving. This involves driving hundreds of miles, setting up a temporary station in the VHF/UHF/Microwave frequencies, and exchanging info with other contest participants in other parts of the country. We set up our stations in multiple Grid Squares - which are sections of the earth 1 degree by 2 degrees.
These two pictures are from my first roving expedition with my friend Bob - K8DOG. We traveled throughout Northern Michigan in 1998, hitting grid squares EN72, EN73, EN74, EN75, EN84 and EN85. Our score was 7599.
A view from the interior of the van. We took out the middle seat, and built a table to fit in it's place. This held all the radios, amps, and other stuff. Coax went out the side window to our antenna array. Power came from a 12VDC truck battery. The antenna array was held up by a steel plate that we drove the back tire of the van onto, and stabilized by a 4x4 piece of wood lashed to the roof of the van. We had a rotor to turn the array.
When you are a rover, the hardest thing to do is to find the right spot to operate. It has to be at a high elevation, must be accessable by car, and relatively free of vegetation (which absorbs RF). It also has to be a public place, unless special arrangements can be made with the owner. Bob and I scoured the Michigan maps, and used Topo USA, a computerized topograhical map program, to find the best spots. We then had to visit each spot and try it out! We did this during the August 1999 UHF contest, where we first operated under Bob's callsign - K8DOG / rover (bark, bark).
Bob - K8DOG operating from the front seat of the van while I operate in the back
Bob posing with our van, and the tower trailer he built. The location is somewhere in EN76 in the upper penninsula of Michigan - one secret spot!
Here is a shot of our rig set up in EN66 at the start of the Sept 1999 VHF/UHF contest
Other Pictures:
My long-time roving buddy Bob McClymont K8DOG and I try to promote people getting on the air, and using their 6 meter (50 MHz) and 2 meter (144 MHz) equipment during the upcoming contest. Here we hand out flyers at the 2005 IRA Radio swap and shop in June 2005. We also are planning our 6m-10GHz roves during the June ARRL VHF contest.
"Got Sideband?" "Got CW?" Get on the Air!
Bouncing my 10 GHz signal off a water tower in EN63
