Upper Midwest Rover Plans

August 2004 UHF Contest

The ARRL plans to phase out the annual August UHF Contest after the 2004 session, which runs from 1 PM Saturday 08/07/04 to 1 PM Sunday 08/08/04 CDT. We in the Northern Lights Radio Society mostly oppose this phase-out, and we have pleaded with the ARRL to reconsider. We have also decided that our message to them would be even stronger if we showed them a record-high level of interest in the contest this year. And if that doesn't change their opinion about eliminating this contest from next year's calendar, at least the UHF Contest can go out with a "bang" from here in the Midwest.

Here is an attempt to compile the planned rover activity for the upcoming August 2004 UHF contest, mostly thanks to Rich Westerberg, NØHJZ. It includes a summary of known rovers going out this year, with their bands, equipment information, and latest travel plans. There is also a summary of grids planned to be activated, and the number of different rover callsigns expected to activate each grid.

In case the grid tabulation in the above spreadsheet is a bit too abstract for you, here are some maps that show where those grids are located.

Hey, I know that "Small" is a relative thing. If you don't consider 156 Kb to be small, please realize that the original map in BMP format was over 18 Megabytes! Also, remember that Internet Explorer 6.0 (if that's what you are using) will default to trying to be "helpful" by shrinking any of these images to fit your screen. That will make them unusably fuzzy, however. But if you hover the mouse pointer over the image, an icon will pop up in the bottom right corner of your screen that allows you to restore the image to its full native size, with scrollbars to allow you to view the entire map from your smaller "viewport" into the whole thing.

The icon looks like this:

There will be no updates once the contest begins, in keeping with the rules that prohibit "spotting assistance" via the internet. In fact, since your webmaster is planning to be one of those rovers, and plans to be far from home at the start of the contest, the last update will probably occur no later than a few hours BEFORE the start of the contest. From that point on, you will have to get any schedule updates by talking to the rovers on the air!

For those who have any difficulty with an Excel spreadsheet, here are PDF files of the various pages of Rich's spreadsheet.

  Rover Bands and Equipment
  Rovers' Grid Schedules
  Summary of Grids to be Activated
  Detail of Grids to be Activated
  Record Scores in the UHF Contest

Last updated 08/06/04 by WØJT