Photos from past VHF/UHF+ adventures (send more)

This is a gallery of VHF/UHF-and-up photos, mostly from rovers scattered across 5,000 miles of America.  Yes, it's 5,000 miles from Mt. Airy Packrat country, site of some of the first photos here, to Hawaii, where one of the later photos was taken.  A highlight here is a gallery of Subaru rovers--more than you've probably ever seen in one place.  Please send more photos--even if you don't rove in a Subaru!
 
 




No rover in recent years has earned a higher profile than Andrea Slack, K2EZ, with "Rover" (that's its name and is capitalized).  Andrea first gained notoriety by activating at least 27 grid squares during a single contest on a drive from her home in New Jersey to her workplace in Texas.  Then she started winning plaques for finishing #1 nationally, first as a four-band limited rover and then as an all-band classic rover.  Here's Rover in its current configuration as of early 2021.  Andrea drives Rover every day with those antennas permanently mounted.  Rover has more than 300,000 miles on its odometer.


Dr. Rick Rosen, K1DS, the Mt. Airy Packrats' most active rover over the last two decades (or more), sent this photo.  The lift supports the microwave antennas for K3IPM (not for roving).


 
 
This is what we're more accustomed to seeing when K1DS/R is in the field during the UHF contest.  He must be pretty serious about 5.7, 10 and 24 GHz!


 
 

AA2UK is also serious about the UHF contest and VHF+ contests in general.  He had the #1 single operator high power entry in the 2003 UHF contest and has built high-profile rovers such as the one with a 28-foot mast shown here.  He also built another rover with a telescoping mast more than 50 feet high!


 
 
Here we have a major achievement and a potential disaster.  N0DQS/R is positioned to run a 24 GHz rain scatter schedule with KM0Tornado (not Mike's usual phonetics) while Mike is busy photographing a tornado behind his house.  The May 1 twister did NOT strike the house, and KM0T did work N0DQS for his 20th grid on 24 GHz.  Early May is a prime tornado season around Mike's northern Iowa QTH.


 
 
K1IIG sent photos of his impressive home station.  At left are two towers with VHF-UHF-microwave antennas.  At right, Steve's tilt-over tower is down so 10 GHz can be added to the array.

This is K1DY/R, set up about as far northeast as anyone roves in the United States:  the middle of the state of Maine.


Moving more than a 1,000 miles west from K1DY's haunts in Maine, here's N0KP's microwave rover in Northern Lights Radio Society country, the home of Rovermania.


This is Dave, N0KP, at his operating position.  We hope he puts a few things away before he drives, so he can be around to take part in Rovermania again! 


Now we begin our Subaru rover gallery with W0ZQ's new Subaru rover, still in the land of 10,000 lakes Rovermania.


Here's W0ZQ's earlier Subaru rover.  The antenna platform is different and has no antenna rotator, but the car has standard Subaru engineering:  all-wheel drive with a "boxer" horizontally opposed engine.  Scroll up and down to compare Jon's two rover installations.  Then scroll on down to see more Subaru rovers...

"Jonesy", W3DHJ, sent this photo of his new Subaru XV Crosstrek, outfitted for roving with solar power!  Because he now lives in Pueblo, Colorado, this was probably taken near there.  He is adding antennas for the UHF bands. 


Now we've moved to the west coast for this view of N6NB's Subaru rover at California's Gaviota State Beach in CM94--a prized DX multiplier if you're on the UHF+ bands in Southern California.  But wait.  More Subaru rovers are just below.


 

This is W6XD/R in a... Subaru.
We've backtracked to New Mexico for this Subaru rover photo.  N6MU (left) and K2MM are ready to go.


 
KK6MC, who lives in New Mexico, sent photos of two more Subaru rovers:  his original Outback (left) that caught fire during a rove, and the Forester that replaced it.  Did you ever notice that little things like fires and tornados don't stop hams? 


 
 
Well, the rover at right is not a Subaru, but it's an effective rover.  Here it's set up for the UHF contest.  K6AH was #1 nationally in the June 2013 VHF contest with this Toyota FJ Cruiser.


No, this is NOT a Subaru, either.  It's a rented Jeep Compass ready to rove up and down the slopes of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano (with Manua Kea in the background).  N6NB had roved too high in this photo--above the top of the trans-Pacific tropo duct and near the famous KH6HME beacon site.  Only by roving back down into the duct was it possible to make record-setting microwave contacts on this particular day.  The duct is often only 800 feet deep and can vary from 4,000' to more than 8,000' in elevation.  If you're too high or too low, signals can be attenuated a lot.


Marie, W1TAI (left), and her sister Carrie, W6TAI, celebrate after making a 24 GHz contact.  Um, the truth is that this photo was staged.  But they were excited when they made 24 GHz contacts during the 2014 UHF contest.  They tied for second overall in single op, low power, using a shared fixed station under the family rule.  Carrie has the distinction of being the first woman to finish #1 nationally in the rover category of an ARRL contest (June, 2010).