I worked the 2011 BARTG RTTY Sprint on Saturday so today I made some VHF contests.  It was about 9 degrees Fahrenheit out this morning so I wasn’t about to put up a temporary 2m beam like I did over the summer so I made do with what I have up. For 6m, I can tune the G5RV which is a big compromise but it works enough for local contacts. I used my 2m/70cm dual band vertical at home and I went mobile/rover through the 4 grid squares in my area (FN21, FN20, FN31 & FN30) where I can operate 2m and 70cm from my car HT to a mag mounted antenna.

Around 2:15pm I got out to the first location and made some contacts on 2m FM with 3 local hams that were around and listening. I could only hear 1 on 70cm from the car in any of the grid squares. I then drove the short loop to cover the 3 remaining grid squares and I was just finishing up another op came on so went around again. In the car I was able to log 18 FM contacts which is pretty good and more then I recall from past attempts. I really wish more folks in the area would just leave their rig on since everyone can do 2m FM simplex but that never seems to be the case.

After heading home I checked 6m & 2m SSB from time to time and worked folks here or there as I moved back and forth between the radio and the TV to watch the NFL championship games. Being able to work 2 or 3 bands with the same person makes your count go up, but with my setup, unless they are nearby or loud, I won’t know they are around to work them.

Looking at the contest rules, I’m a bit confused on what category (or categories) I need to submit my logs in. It might be that I submit only the contacts not being rover or only the contacts when I was rover and the others are added to the club score but not my individual score. Well, it seems to read that way to me.  My total logged came to 46 contacts contacts of which 18 were mobile/rover and the other 28 were from my home station.  I’ll be on hold for a bit until I get some further info from the ARRL or someone that is familiar with this type of situation. I guess I’ll have a follow-up post once I get some clarification.

73,
K2DSL