My team and I will be operating “rover” in the 9-10 September VHF Contest.  We are starting at the SW corner of Des Moines – just off highway 35 – and heading to the 4 grid corner about 45 minutes to your southwest.  We will be in your area from 1 PM to 1:30 PM on FM and USB… and then we will be heading SW to the grid corner and for those of you who have horizontal antennas, we could work you for a long ways!  We intend to operate a course of over 1000 miles and activating between 15-17 grid squares.

We request your help –

1.       …spreading the word to your club and to other clubs through your weekly nets and perhaps even emails (cc: [email protected]).  We will be monitoring 146.52 FM simplex and 144.200 USB.  We have horizontally polarized (USB) antennas on 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, and 1296 mhz.  We have vertically polarized (FM) antennas on 2m and 70 cm… So even someone completely new to contesting can make contacts with us!

2.       Please encourage anyone interested in being on our call list to contact me at [email protected].  The rules allow this, now!  I am trying to find the alpha-weak signal operators so I can put them on my map!   (join our ARRL VHF Contest – N0LD Rover facebook site for pictures and detailed last minute information)

I’ve included more detailed information below my signature for those really inclined to help…  and two pictures!

This is a lot of fun – and most hams have the equipment to make a 2m contact with us.  If there is interest, we could meet in the morning at a local restaurant to show off our vehicle!

Randall (Randy) Wing, N0LD

VHF & UHF Rover

(636) 459-0964 (c)

N0LD Rover Vehicle

Rear seat of the rover vehicle

I would like to invite you to participate in this year’s ARRL June VHF contest (9-10 Sep 2017).  My friend and brother-in-law Nick Farlow (KB0YHT), my friend Harvey Jones (W0HGJ), and I will be operating “rover”.  (itinerary attached)  The rules have recently changed:

A.      Entrants can use repeaters to solicit contacts on simplex frequencies – and we are now allowed to use the standard simplex frequencies (52.525, 145.52, 223.5, 446.0, 906.5, and 1294.5) to make FM contacts – allowing a whole new community of FM operators to participate – there is even an award for Single Operator, FM Only.

B.      Internet chat rooms, Facebook, Twitter, text messages, telephone calls, APRS are all OK to use during the contest.  Please join our ARRL VHF Contest – N0LD Rover Facebook group to follow our rover and to receive any changes to our itinerary, location, and operating conditions!  If you don’t want to join Facebook, please consider replying with other contact information below (phone, repeater) or just look for us to arrive per the itinerary on the frequencies posted.

What we request is that you “reply to [email protected]” to this email with your answers to the following questions – we will not publish your information, it will be used to populate our contact list so that we can let you know when we are going through your area – we want to make a contact with you!  (as an alternative you can send me a message on Facebook to “Randy Friend”)

1.       Could you please forward this email to any of your amateur radio friends, and pass this info to your club emails/Facebook/etc?  (I’ve already passed this to the EARS and SCARS)

2.       Would you be willing to participate in this year’s June VHF contest?  (yes, no)

3.       What bands/modes do you have?  (6m SSB/FM, 2m SSB/FM, 1.25m SSB/FM, 70cm SSB/FM, 33cm SSB/FM, 23cm SSB/FM)

4.       What times during the contest will you be on?

5.       Do you operate digitally?  (yes, no)

6.       On what bands do you operate digitally and what modes?

7.       Does the itinerary (below) work for you operation?

8.       Is it OK to contact you further?

9.       Would you please provide your preferred phone number so that we can contact you during the contest in case the rules change?  (we will keep this to ourselves)

10.   We intend to contact you again when our itinerary changes and before future contests, if you’d like to be removed from this distribution please let us know.

11.   Would you like to refer any of your friends to our list?

12.   Is there a local repeater (to you) that you would like us to announce our presence on in your general area?  (If so what is the name, frequency, tone, etc.)

13.   Any comments?