• Planned spots
• Antennas
• Post contest summary

I’ve decided on a route (31-July) at the last hour… I was originally looking at Davis and Sulphur, OK but I was asked to go activate EM05/EM06 which is near Roman Nose State Park. Either route was about the same mileage and time investment – 2~3 hours on the road but Roman Nose State Park would place me near the grid line. The less exciting part however is that Roman Nose State Park is a canyon/valley so I will actually spend my time on higher ground on the side of the state highway 51A on both sides of the grid line.

I will leave for Mount Scott Saturday morning and be prepared to make contacts when the contest begins at 1pm. I will car-camp “overnight” near Mount Scott somewhere and attempt meteor scatter contacts on 222, then begin driving toward Roman Nose State Park. I spent a LOT of time trying to find an RV park that has on-site bathrooms and 240v 50-amp elect but apparently that’s not common down by Medicine Park or Lake Lawtonka (most RV locations expect you to use your RV bathroom). The tent camp in Wichita Mountain Wildlife Park is only 120v 30 Amp. I hope to overnight a few hours at “Lake Lawtonka East CG” operated by the City of Lawton they do not do reservations – you park then register.. so I may be in for a LONG night. That is the plan, weather permitting: https://www.mesonet.org/forecast/local-regional?ref=1333&stid=medi

Watch for me on APRS: https://aprs.fi/
Track callsign N5ZY.

Here are the planned spots

Local Time	Grid	Lat, Lon	Elevation (Ft)	Note	Gmap Link
1pm	EM04rr	34.74451, -98.53200	2465	Summit	GMap
car-camp	EM04ss	34.75114821457289, -98.48726275232255	1350	Lake Lawtonka East CG Possible sleep spot and place to try MSK144 and has 240v 50A.	GMap
Sunday
watch APRS	EM05sw	35.933768229131, -98.43449418353933		Roman Nose Park (valley). Possible sleep spot w/240v 50A.	GMap
watch APRS	EM05sx	35.995519820301645, -98.47627560479832	1605	Side of road	GMap
watch APRS	EM06sa	36.00515890639316, -98.47636506133492	1642	Side of road	GMap

Here again are the antennas on the vehicle

Bands	Antenna
Verticals
2 M	Whip while driving
2/70/23	Comet Base Vertical CMA-GP-95 while parked only and while the rotor is NOT in use! 6 dBi @ 146MHz, 8.6 dBi @ 446, 12.8 dBi 1.2 GHz
1.25 M	Comet CA-SUPER22 while parked only 6.6 dB @ 222 MHz
33 CM	Comet KP-20 while parked only 9.2 dB @ 902 MHz
Horizontals
6 M	Par Electronics Stressed Moxon, (50.3 Mhz) or M2 Antennas 6M-3SS beam or Par Electronics 6M Omniangle (OA-50)
2 M	M2 Antennas 2M7X (144-148MHz) 7ele 12.3 dBi
1.25 M	M2 Antennas 222-10EZ (222-226 MHz) 10 ele 14.1 dBi
70 CM	M2 Antennas 440-11X (420-450 MHz) 11 ele 13.4 dBi
33 CM	M2 Antennas 917HD (900-930MHz) 17 ele 17 dBi
23 CM	M2 Antennas 23CM35 (1250-1300MHz) 35 ele 20.94 dBi

Post Contest Summary

Update from Mount Scott: The Gods Were Not Impressed

This trip was supposed to be all about fun and radio victories—but apparently, I forgot to pay tribute to the fickle God of Propagation (and her troublemaking sister, the God of Summer Storms).

I rolled up to Mount Scott, optimism in tow, and started making random FT8 contacts on 222 and 440. Soon, I tried my luck on 902 and 1296. The only thing I made contact with there? Complete silence. Even the signals on 222 and 440 soon decided they had better things to do, leaving me alone with the sweet sound of static.

Several hours of rotate, CQ, rotate, CQ, (you get the idea) later, I took a much-needed sanity break. I headed down to Lake Lawtonka, scoped out an RV park to set up for a night of car-camping, and basked in the glory of choosing the perfect spot. Right then, a Slack message from Scott, AA5AM, pinged—I scrambled back up Mount Scott for another attempt. Success! We got a solid QSO on 432 MHz. But 902 and 1296? Nada. Not even a courtesy break in static or rise of noise.

Ever the optimist, I pinned my hopes on evening conditions around 7-10 PM. Rookie mistake: no sacrifice, no propagation. The RF gods turned their backs. While I was chasing another scheduled QSO, a Park Ranger materialized to announce the park was closed due to sunset. As I packed up, my wife called to warn me about an incoming severe storm featuring—wait for it—ping-pong ball-sized hail. (Apparently storm chasers did their sacrifices and were rewarded (I admit the oddly specific detailed size of hail and time of arrival spooked me as it could be damage loss of the car and all my radio gear.)

A quick radar check confirmed my fresh Sunday plans: head home before the front arrived. With a few hours left, I retreated to car-camp, plugged in, rolled out the mattress, and enjoyed a gourmet room-temperature MRE. Living the dream.

Lessons learned: Before any future rover trips, I will be crafting a yagi antenna out of palm leaves, burning it, and using the ashes to draw an antenna on my forehead. Because, frankly, at this point it can’t hurt.

Testing the perfect spot at my car-camp while listening for signals around 6pm.

I have to say, lake RV spots have a lot more ‘wildlife’ than the RV parks in the woods… I saw more golf carts and ATV’s here than I’ve seen anywhere else and “Quiet Hours” was ignored by many of the campers. My favorite however were those who pulled up by the car shining their overhead lights and driving lights onto my car while trying to understand what their looking at.. meanwhile I was laying down in the back trying to sleep in what reminded me of a Friday Night on the football field.

Grids in the log

The maps below were created using https://www.levinecentral.com/adif2map/
I imported my ADI file then using Levin Centrals site I converted to KML and imported to Google Earth.
Note that for my position and the position of the other stations the app is picking the grid square center not the exact positions. Yeah, this was all I could achieve.. not a good result at all.