Considerably more activity this year than in the past. Could not say it was better conditions or just more people on, but better for sure.

Operated from the Beck family driveway in Shiras Hills for the considerable elevation advantage. I had not remembered correctly the directionality of the driveway and had to kind of park sideways to get the mobile long lobe pointed downstate, but it worked out ok.

Lesson: scout the grounds!

Tested idea of using the minivan as an operating position for more than non-casual operating. Operated from the front passenger seat with the rig on the dash, laptop computer on a cafeteria tray on my lap and rigged up with headphones, boom microphone and footswitch. Footswitch had to be on the left.

Overall, worked well. Switch on the left was a little awkward at first, but I got it straight quickly. The computer was a perfect match for the cafeteria tray base, but it was a chore holding the tray on my knees. Left knee was higher a bit to guard the switch. Having the tray on some kind of racking system would be perfect.

Lesson: develop the sling / rack idea for the back seat.

Used N3FPJ’s MiQP contest software and it made life very, very good. I had a pad and pen nearby, but never had reason to use it.

75 qso’s over about 4 hours operating.

Oh! I saw the MiQP UP rover truck drive through Harvey. Looks like the designers / developers of the vehicle had done some pretty good work on putting it together.