It’s been 57 years of ham radio for me yet this awesome hobby continues to be an intoxicating gulp of mystery, adventure and new learning. In this case, I’m hooked on VHF roving- an opportunity to test one’s wits against an in-motion 36-hour road trip while outfitted with multiple radios using multi-band VHF/UHF/microwave bands and modes.
If you’ve heard of Murphy’s Law, “if something will go wrong, it will”, this is a testament to the struggle and accomplishment of making something work despite unexpected issues along the way.
Roving is HARD.
Driving 80 MPH with a boatload of radio equipment inside the van and a mini tower with 5 rotatable antenna beams on top of the car is daunting. The environmental stresses due to bumpy roads, high temperatures, thunderstorms, and RF bring makes this interesting elixer.
The complicated software applications working together undergo a stress test as well, as robust APIs, commands and data integrity are expose weaknesses or flaws in the code while also being bombarded by a heavy shower of radio interference within the vehicle.
Bring a ladder, a healthy respect for challenge, an openness to learn new things, and a good attitude. That’s roving in a nutshell.
Preparation
I’ve been planning this June Roving event since the last outing in January. This last one was a disaster since I hadn’t pre-tested my setup and was mired with insurmountable RFI issues that kept corrupting the N1MM and WSJTX configurations and associated Com Ports and Audio Ports. Each corruption also left legacy software artifacts which bastardized the N1MM and WSJTX setups even after a reboot. That was a nightmare.
This time, I studied many articles about RFI suppression and learned of the proper Mix 31, 41, 61 ferrite beads, and I purchased a boatload to assure signal and RF lines were protected against that past horror show.
Yep, I successfully conquered the RFI issue this time. Whew.
To me, Roving is impossible to do unless you are retired (sorry folks who are still working for a living). I spent many days in advance planning and setting up new configurations. In hindsight, this is akin to payload integration and ground processing of a flight vehicle- lots of details to be worked and everything needs to checked out.
New Stuff
For this time, I added many new bells and whistles from past configurations:
– More juice
– 300W 6m amp (TE-5052)
– 300W 2m amp (TE-1492)
– Monitoring of RF
– SWR meters (Bird 43, Telewave 44)
– Large power capacity for the amps
– 4 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries for the amps
– Easy switching between the 2m and 6m beams or omni antennas
– 2 2-way coax switches (Daiwa)
– A common headset and radio controls to RX/TX between 2 radios
– DXDoubler SO2 switcher
– A spacious 4-foot wire rack with 4 shelves to hold the equipment
– Better coax
– Added LMR400UF to replace a degraded RG8 coax
– Easy use of one CW paddle
– Added a Winkeyer for sharing a paddle between 2 radios
– Easy to use single PTT handheld button switch
– Avoids multiple PTT mic or foot switches
– RFI protection for 144 MHz
– DCI cavity filter
– RFI protection for 432 MHz
– DCI cavity filter
– A large LCD display to offset the tiny FT817 display
– Aliexpress from China
– Added option to use a 25W 1296 radio
– Q5 Systems 1296 transverter
– Boatload of RFI Ferrite chokes across data, power, and RF lines.
– An RF tolerant PC
– Intel NUC with much better internal RF shielding
– New SeaSucker suction cups to assure guy wire reliability to hold down the mini-tower
Poor Excuses
- I ran out of time to fully test the whole system before the contest.
- I ran out of time to troubleshoot a misbehaving 902 MHz transverter which I hoped to deploy in the setup. I also had a bit of too much help from interested onlookers.
- A short test drive to the market on the day before, snagged a low hanging tree branch and severely bent the upper 6m Stressed Moxon antenna. Luckily, I twisted back the deformed 1×1″ aluminum square tubing enough to get it reassembled.
Test before you Fly
- I forgot to bring and install a 222 MHz interface cable between the K3 radio and the XV222 transverter. I discovered this after departure, so no 222 MHz capability.
- The Q5 Systems 1296 transverter didn’t work. I never got a chance to fully test it out before leaving but hoping it would work without issue. Turns out I forgot to add a Keying cable between the transverter and the FT817.
- Three of four 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries failed on day 2 (Sunday). Something weird happened which drained the batteries. Had I fully tested these batteries, I could have assess and possibly resolved the problem. It’s still under investigation and I’m working with the vendor, LiTime.
- One of the 2 Daiwa coax switches was bad. I only discovered this on day 2, after wondering why the 2m omni didn’t work anyone. I decided to glance at the SWR and noticed the high reflected energy which led me to the discovery. Unfortunately, this was the switch I disassembled days earlier to clean it up, since I left it outside under a rainstorm while prepping the setup. My careful disassembly, cleanup, and re-assembly was obviously flawed.
- Throughout Day 1, I was flummoxed with no FT8 2m QSOs. I assumed that my somewhat desolate route going north along the along I83 was simply out of range from the sweet spot of 2m folks in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas. After getting to my motel room at 11:00pm, I spent some time in the parking lot trying to checkout the equipment. Then I discovered that my K3 was outputting FT8 on LSB data mode instead of USB data mode. I wasted 400 miles of transmitting RF on a mode that nobody listens to.
Highlights:
Near the Oklahoma boarder on Sunday 0530, I saw an ugly storm front coming in from Norman, Ok. One of the heavy clouds had those scary dips in it like the beginning of a tornado. The winds started kick up and the looming sky was a dangerous sight. I decided to pause my early morning route itinery and hunkered down at the Love’s Truckstop. The notion of being exposed alone in an unfamiliar dirt road was not a pleasant thought. Luckily, the storm passed through while I took a nap at the truckstop with no damage to the antennas nor radios.
At every gas station, I received my normal amount of folks asking what I was doing with my contraption. Everyone always think I’m a storm chaser. I think they’re disappointed to hear I’m only a ham experimenter. For one of the guys who worked at a Shell gas station, I took the time to explain how roving works and why I had different antennas. He appreciated my time to share with him and gave me a free cup of coffee in return. Another guy startled me by tapping strongly on my window as I was leaving. He had to know who and what I was, only to have me explain my setup. It’s like a strange form of fame I guess.
I’m getting better at anticipating how much clearance I can tolerate before snagging the antenna tops to the tree branches. This is not intuitive, and you’d be surprised how much a seemingly high branch can still contact the roof top upper antennas. Yes, once again, I hit a tree branch while searching for a hilltop elevation to operate. The lightweight aluminum ladder comes in very handy, and luckily, I was able to climb the roof top again, re-seat the dislodged 6m Moxon arm, and realign the bent loops on the 1296 loop Yagi elements. For the latter, I had to stand on my tippytoes on the roof top, using the handle of a hammer to barely nudge the bent loop Yagi elements back in place. I wish I was taller; Mom and Dad should have placed an order for a taller kid when the recipe for me was in the works. Boy, getting a few more inches would also be making buying better fitted pants a lot easier, too.
This was my first use of the 1296 band, ever. Luckily, the IC9700 has this band built into the radio. After I got past all my Saturday day 1 woes, Sunday was a fun route back down south with multiple contacts on 1296 SSB and CW. I always imagined it being such an exotic and difficult frequency, but it worked great with only 10W output. In fairness, I had several “big gun” operators, or operators close-by, who made it easy for me: K5LLL, K5TR and K5TRA. But now I’ve gotten a feel for the band and what it can do, I’m confident in making many more contacts on the next outing.
The Elecraft K3 radio was used on a maiden trip for the outing. It remains one of my favorite radios and its performance is outstanding. But I’m still not familiar with all the menu modes, and I did not appreciate how easy it is to accidently bump controls which can inadvertently the setup. Radios in generally really have gotten complicated with various controls that affect signal levels, filter widths, frequency offsets, and a variety of buttons and controls for other modes and functions. A dangerous setup when cramped and moving around.
For this outing, I used a 4 foot long 4-tiered wire shelf. I had to recline the passenger seat and remove the passenger seat behind it for it to fit. This shelf worked great, as it allowed me to velco all the equipment down using foam pads for vibration isolation. Also, the open wired shelving was great to use cable ties to secure the cables and wiring in the back. Most of all, it gave me a bit of spacing to keep the 2 300W amps at the opposite end of the shelves, with a little separation to mitigate RF exposure to the radios and the PC NUC. Note, I got an older PC NUC to reduce the risk of RFI, since its build had better RF shielding than the Beelink mini that I used previously.
EM13 is a grid near Wizard Wells. I test two separate locations at this grid: one on a seemingly unobstructed spot alongside the road, and other on the crest of a hill. Boy, the crested hill made a day and night difference in my VHF/UHF visibility to others! I now much better appreciate how sensitive location is to these upper frequencies. Somehow, I’ll need to review spots for higher elevation in the future spots, which is basically done by reviewing google maps online photos.
While staying at the Vernon Budget Host Motel, I had pesky flies in the room that I couldn’t kill. After trying my alcohol mister and my OFF repellent spray bottle, no joy getting them dead after 30 minutes of chasing them around the room. I ended up gong to the office and waking up the owner around midnight and he kindly loaned me his fly swatter. I killed 6 flies and mosquito in the room. I commuted one who’s life was spared so I could get to bed.
Post mission debrief.
I like to compile a list of lessons learned which describes “what worked”, “what didn’t work”, “observations/improvements”. This list is 3 pages long. So obviously I have lots of things to work on. I think this is the allure of wanting to continue this crazy adventure- the satisfaction to see how much I can improve and conquer the demons.
Conclusion.
This is an analog to space flight hardware. The certification process is conducted to make sure everything works under- temperature, vibration, Electromagnetic Interference, humidity(rain), and under the burn-in of both HW and SW. The motto, “test what you fly and fly what you test” assures things will work out. Last minute changes (many in my case) will eat your lunch.
My admiration for those who have mastered this and have consistently done these rover events. I’m still learning and getting better.
There are groups of folks in the Roadrunner Microwave Group and the North Texas Microwave Group that are experts in the upper frequencies. They have been very supportive of my roving ops, and several have been more than helpful in guidance and advice. Meeting several of these experts on the air along the routes makes it fun.
I had already committed in my mind not to worry about scoring for this route. This was more to test out the new setup and see what worked and didn’t.
Next Steps.
- Activate 222 MHz.
- Activate 902 MHz (a project John AB5SS and I are building)
- Resolve or mitigate most of the “what didn’t work” items on my list.
- Focus on high QSO scores this next time- I’m ready to go for it.
Postscript.
As mentioned before, thanks to John AB5SS who introduced me into Roving.
Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd Pt/Q
50 CW 22 22 20 1.0
50 FT8 53 53 38 1.0
50 USB 3 3 1 1.0
144 CW 1 1 0 1.0
144 FT8 17 17 7 1.0
144 USB 17 17 4 1.0
420 FT8 3 6 2 2.0
420 USB 14 28 3 2.0
1240 CW 6 18 2 3.0
1240 USB 4 12 0 3.0
Total Both 140 177 77 1.3
Score : 13,629
73 Dave W5OC
Great write-up, Dave.