KE3HT/r trip June 2004

Interesting trip, Well thats the best word for it. I had one failure, my new 222mhz preamp apparently did not work. You might say I really don't know about the rest of the equipment. Why? Every band was strange. Only 6meters was strange good. 2meters was WAY down, with a bad pre-amp 222 was non-existant. 432 was there but I only worked stations that would QSY up from the lower bands. My longest 5ghz contact was 165miles. I only made contact with one station (1, yes 1) on 5ghz! 3ghz was a little better only on Saturday night at sunset when I made a 281mile contact.

I tried to be different this time. Not a lot of sched's, instead I spent a lot of time on 2m calling CQ. It didn't help. Last January I roved with KJ1K and CQ worked quite well. So what happened? Reports I have heard from other rovers and a couple of main stations seem to think the bands were "flat". I say they were down. On Sunday I gave up CQ and went back to hunt and pounce. My voice keyer was reported to be clear and copyable by everyone I did work.

Only cool thing was bumping into a Rover from Reno Nevada! NR6CA, Randy.

I keep notes on stations I regularly try to work. This is my summary of them:
K8GP: only 6meters, 2meters was never even heard! much less worked. No microwave attempts.
N2PA: good to 903mhz but thats it.
W2FU: where were you?
W2SZ: the only one I worked 5ghz on but even then only real close at 165 miles.

Strange though they are usually so loud in some of my sites in PA that I can hear them even when they are pointing their beams up north. 2 meters was hard, 432 impossible!

W3CCX: worked a couple of different sites but none above 222. I was even in eastern FN12 and they were hard to work.

I heard they were working microwaves but I never got through even on 432.

K3YTL: normally I work them all bands from almost all my sites. This time they were hard to find.
W3SO: was there but even when I was in their grid I could not work them on all their bands! (50-432mhz)