11:10am — There are some details to be ironed out, but as of right now, I have email from W9FZ Bruce. In it, he says that he’s going to setup in either NE or NCentral WI tonight (8:30-9:30pm central?) and operate from his well-equipped, multi-band rover tonight. He intends to stick around as long as he gets activity.
The reason he’s operating is to activate a WI County that isn’t usually on the air — VHF/UHF-wise. Sounds like he just cooked up this idea this morning so there will be some last-minute coordination of how to properly get both him and the net plenty of activity without us tripping over each other.
I know from years of experience that when W9FZ roves, he’s plenty strong. He is a rover with legitimate 100-200 mile range, under flat bands. He knows the high places and will gladly work a bunch of contacts on various bands, just like he would in a contest.
You might be wondering what WIVUCH is. It stands for WI VHF/UHF County Hunters award. I started this program back about April, for the purpose of creating more activity on VHF/UHF bands (50 MHz and above) in all Wisconsin counties. You need at least 20 (out of 72 total) WI counties on any V/U band (any mode, mix and match, except no repeater contacts allowed) to earn a nice initial certificate. WV9E Dave won WIVUCH #1 back some weeks ago.
Full info about WIVUCH is at wivuch.com. Please take 5-10 minutes to become familiar with the rules. EDIT — Want to thank W9FZ very much for creating and maintaining the WIVUCH website, and also thank WV9E with helpful advice on various WIVUCH topics.
If ever there was a night where it pays to monitor the net via on4kst.com chat, this is it.
W9FZ will be busy until about 7:30-8pm, and may adjust his plans on the fly. He may end up activating more than one county. He may be on the air until 10-11 or later. With all those “maybes” the only way to intelligently update everyone is via on4kst.com chat. It’s free, no BS, and available to all USA/VE hams anytime. We have a good group in there on Wed. nights. The registration is pretty simple and quick. Once you’re registered, you choose the IARU Region 2 Room for 144-432 MHz. I should be in and out of there today, and certainly in there by 7:30pm central tonight.
I update where net control is pointing and who he’s working via on4kst.com chat. Of course, tonight, I’ll try to update where W9FZ sets up his good rover station, and what frequency he might be CQ’ing on. I want him to be on a different freq. than 144.240.