The 6m band openings made this one non-stop fun. 6m phone openings in the morning and evenings were very active and when I identified as Rover people really worked to log me. This is one reason rovering around has some real fun moments, along with being in a beautyful park and seeing the horizon. Mt. Scott did appear to be a great place except for the people with noisy spark plugs most people park in the first lot and they don’t notice the second, smaller lot. I parked over there all by myself, except when I needed to get around the obstructed view facing South.

The thing that takes the MOST time is determining strategic destinations (near grid corner, near large metro area, high elevation without other ridge lines in-between), travel time, battery range, and car charge locations. I spend days reviewing grid corners. their elevation/obstructions, range to largest metros and range to the nearest charging station. I may be re-using this route many times going foreword. Reviewing various maps to find the highest elevations without obstructions at the edges of major metros and including proximity to Grid corners is a lot of screen time. Most roads go through valleys not over hills. I basically used all of my time for this and none of my time thinking about what to pack or load so the day before and morning of was a mad, frantic dash to gear-up. All this frenzy compounded the time spent re-routing wires for a better fit and less tangles. It also led to me running back and forth as I constantly forgot what I was fetching due to constant random thoughts in-between. I struggle to focus without a list.

I should have taken off work the day before to load all the gear in the car and the Monday after so I could sleep in and recover. I didn’t know that 6m would be highly active until after 10 PM causing me to arrive home at 1 AM Sunday morning, only to get up and head out again after a few hours of sleep.

163 contacts logged
95 multipliers
I only managed to activate 5 grids out of the 7 grids I planned

Grids I worked in this contest

Not a bad result for only my 2nd time rovering alone. I still have a lot to learn and room for improvement but I had fun hunting QSO’s and the strong 6m openings made it very rewarding. Thank you to everyone at the ARRL that manages this contest and thank you to everyone who worked me.

I had to use two laptops as my original windows laptop was not receiving audio from WSJT. So I had to go home and grab a second, Ubuntu laptop and it worked great! WSJTX on Ubuntu and N3FJP logging on the other.. I will run N3FJP in a VM on Ubuntu next time.

Parked on top of Mt. Scott with the lake below and the wind farm on the horizon.

The wildflowers, etc were quite a site.
Also in this image you can see the bending to the 6m moxon from the low hanging tree limbs I encountered at Purcell.

The original Saturday Schedule (Times are Central) and best effort…

ArriveDepartLocationGridAddr
1:00 PM1:30 PMGuthrieEM15ht838 E Camp Dr, Guthrie, OK 73044
2:00 PM2:30 PMVassarEN16hbVassar Church, 19818 W 56th St, Mulhall, OK 73063
3:00 PM3:30 PMStillwaterEM16ldStrickland Park, EV charger, sandwich, etc
4:30 PM5:00 PMTulsaEM16xcLookout Mountain
3300-3604 S 29th W Ave, Tulsa, OK 74107
5:00 PM5:30 PMTulsaEM26abTurkey Mountain
6100-6698 S 4th W Ave, Tulsa, OK 74132
6:40 PM7:00 PMJenksEM25axThe Collaborative Coffee
1577 W 121st St S, Jenks, OK 74037

The original Sunday Schedule

ArriveDepartLocationGridAddr
9:00 AM9:30 AMNorman metroEM15fe4336 Blue Ridge Ave, Norman, OK 73072
10:00 AM10:30 AMPurcellEM14hxCemetery
11:30 AM12:00 PMChickashaEM15haDowntown charger, sandwich, etc
1:00 PM2:00 PMMt. ScottEM04rr
3:00 PM3:30 PMAnadarkoEM05vb
4:00 PM5:00 PMChickashaEM15haDowntown charger, sandwich, etc
6:00 PM6:30 PMEdmondEM15gpLifeChurch at 2nd (NW178th) and I-35

Hardware

Radios
IC76106m SSB/FM/Data/CW
IC97002m, 70cm, 23cm SSB/FM/Data/CW
Anytone2m, 1.25m, 70cm FM
Anytone2m, 1.25m, 70cm FM, DMR
Ant
6mPar Electronics Stressed Moxon
2mM2 Antennas 2M7X
70cmM2 Antennas 440-11X
23cmComet CYA-1216E
2m-1.25m-70cmTri-band vertical

Simplex Frequencies

BandCall Freq
(USB)		QSO Freq
(USB)		FM
Freq		Recognized
FM SIMPX		Recognized
FM SIMPX		Recognized
FM SIMPX		Other FM1Other FM2Other FM3Other FM4
650.12550.14552.525
2144.200144.220146.520146.490146.550146.580146.535146.550146.565146.580
147.480147.495147.510147.525
1.25222.100222.120223.500223.420223.440223.480223.500
70432.100432.120446.000
33902.100902.100902.125903.125915.000
231296.1001296.1201294.5001294.0001294.025every 25 kHz to 1295