Texas Panhandle 6 Meter Grid Line Activation — DM86-DM85

I had planned to activate Texas Panhandle grids during the CQ WW VHF Contest based on the results of my ARRL VHF June 2019 activation of eight grids.

That first contest rover effort in the Panhandle was when I discovered that there is very little activity in that part of the country above 6 meters. Given that, it is best to avoid the contests that rely on QSOs above 6 meters.

Not only that but I’d had a request from K1TOL to help him work FFMA Grid 487 from DM86. Plus, it appeared that it was time I contributed to the rover grid activation jubilee that has been happening this summer with so many people activating grids along with extreme rover operations over many, many grids and even more miles.

Rover versus Fixed Station

I like to enter VHF contests as a rover. That helps overcome the boredom that can happen here in Texas after you’ve worked all the nearby stations. That boredom is occasionally interrupted by a 6 meter opening, thankfully.

With the goal of getting K1TOL in the log from DM86, the more I thought about it the more I realized that I needed to be in that grid all the time. That would include before the contest and perhaps even after if nothing had yet happened.

Also looking at the FFMA grid rankings DM85 is ranked slightly higher than DM86. So I decided to activate the grid line on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And after the contest heading to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Amarillo.

As a fixed station, I could also move to a bigger antenna, deploy my push-up mast, and perhaps use higher power versus my usual limited rover power and roof-top mount antennas.

If you read this blog, you’ve watched as I acquired a 5-element Yagi, a 375-watt TE Systems amplifier, and along the way, as a result of the big freeze here and power losses, a small generator. I also added an Airspy SDR as an upgrade from the RTL-SDR.  I further decided to focus only on 6 meters in a futile effort to simplify my operation.

Setup Challenges

Simplifying the operation was the goal but that doesn’t always work out. As any rover knows, pulling all your equipment out of your ham shack and installing it in your car not only takes a fair amount of work but results in many challenges along the way.

One of the big ones was disassembling the 5-element Yagi. The boom splits into 6-foot segments. I planned to strap it to the roof with the booms cross-wise and the 9-foot elements running the length of the car.

That worked but I had a heck of a time getting the booms apart. After grunting, groaning, and removing an element whose bracket was squeezing the boom’s tubing, I got it apart.

Getting everything into the car along with spares, tools, and backup options not to mention clothing for the several days was also a big challenge.

Then trying to get all the USB ports working again and the audio routed correctly for WSJT-X always drives me crazy. But we did get it done, only to do it all over again once on site — every single day.

Travel Time — Visit W5AFY

It’s an 8-hour drive to Dalhart from my home in Grapevine. Fortunately, I was able to break up the trip by stopping off at Dan’s place in Vernon.

Wow. Does he have an incredible station from an industrial grade 5 meter dish that weighs in at 7,000 lbs, to all manner of VHF, UHF, and microwave equipment along with an incredible collection of refurbished boat anchors.

It’s no wonder that he’s able to work my rover on every band no matter where I’m located at the time.

If we’re all in a race to collect the most toys, Dan’s already won.

Grid Line Location Wonders

I had been scouting out locations for the DM86-DM85 grid line. Since I had operated from those grids during the ARRL June VHF contest, I knew that neither trees nor hills would be a problem no matter where I set up.

Fortunately, NA6L had operated from a grid line near Dalhart and K7BWH published the location details at Grid Square DM. It was interesting driving up to it for the first time. It’s a paved road and about mile or so from the spot all the power lines stopped at the nearest farm house. Talk about noise free.

Moving off the road about a dozen feet onto the edge of an unplowed field helped get the car to an even spot for planting the mast and getting things going.

Over the course of the two days I was there, several people stopped by and talked to me about ham radio. They all offered to help if I needed anything. The local farmer ended up providing me a place to drop of the Yagi overnight so that I didn’t have to disassemble it. That really helped. Nice folks out there.

Interesting Factoid — Dalhart, Texas, is closer to the state capitals of six states than it is to Austin, the capital of Texas. (New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.)

Friday Results — Incredible

I got setup and resolved most computer problems by 8 AM. In the first hour I’d worked 50 stations including K1TOL! That made the whole trip successful right there.

Things slowed down a bit from there but by the time I closed up shop just after 7 PM, I had 197 stations in the log. The big majority were FT8 QSOs but as the band died down I worked quite a few on MSK144 and Q65. Coordinating efforts on VHF Slack was quite helpful.

I will note that I ran into issues with the SDR receivers. They didn’t have much sensitivity for a reason yet to be determined. I had to use the IC-9100 receiver by the time I started. I also found some issues with the TE amp with lower power than expected. I still need to troubleshoot these items now that I’m back home.

Over the course of the day, it was clear that lots of people were hearing me but, unfortunately, I wasn’t hearing them. It could not have been the noise, which is the excuse I use at home. I need to spend some time reviewing and improving my receiver setup.

Saturday — No So Good

It was slow going on Saturday. I started about 9 AM but it was 10:30 AM before the first station found the log. Just before the contest started, I managed only 27 QSOs with some early MSK144 followed by FT8.

When the contest started, I dropped all communication via Slack, the only channel that I had been using. That’s per the CQ WW VHF assistance rules.

During the contest I was on the air from 1 PM to 5 PM when thunderstorms hit. I managed to work 51 stations and it was a real struggle. Most of the stations were to the West and a few in the Midwest.

As I was being buffeted by the storms with the Yagi lowered to rooftop level and the generator turned off and stashed in the back, I realized that I was really done for the day and for the contest. I was way too tired and not much motivated to get on again after the storm.

When the rain let up, I disassembled the Yagi and strapped it back on the roof. I spent the night back in the motel in Dalhart. On Sunday, I headed into Amarillo to visit my daughter. Her and her husband are building a home on 33 acres north of Amarillo in DM85. So, I’ll be back.

LoTW SNAFU

On Monday night, after the drive back home, I uploaded all the QSOs to Logbook of the World. Then I discovered that my TQSL setup works great when you’re uploading a rover log with one grid location per QSO taken directly from the log. But it doesn’t work so great trying to show two grids for each QSO.

I finally figured it out and uploaded the logs once again. All looks to be in order. But if you find a problem, please let me know and I’ll fix it.

There were way too many QSOs that didn’t complete. On Friday that usually meant that another station obliterated them before we could complete. On Saturday it was typically because they faded completely after just one transmission.

Thanks for QSOs and for your patience with my operating challenges and my struggles to get LoTW loaded correctly. Let’s do this again after me and my station have healed and rested. 73.