I am in Estes Park,  Colorado for the Rocky Mountain Division ARRL Convention, HamCon 2009. I drove up from New Mexico yesterday. The trip gave me the chance to see how the TS-2000X works in the car. I put the six meter square loop, homebrew, on the mast in traveling configuration and took off. It was to be a 6M shakedown cruise for the June VHF Contest.

I was fortunate to have sporadic E propagation off an on during the day as I drove east and north through DM64, DM65, DM74 (just barely), DM75, DM76,  Dm77, and DM79and gave several people new grids. I worked N6ZE from DM74, DM75, and DM76 for  a straight. I think DM74 was a new one for him. 

I also worked N7KA from DM77, which is a nice bit of troposcatter for my antenna. The TS-2000X gave a good account of itself, although I am still getting used to its many features. The noise blanker is quite effective and I appreciated when I drove through urban areas. 

The picture above shows KK6MC/r parked at the Estes Park Brewery. The bartender, Lucien, thought it unusual enough to take the picture above and show it around the bar. The HamCon committee was meeting there and he thougth they might be interested in it. When he got to me, he sheepishly asked if I had a big antenna on the car. I said yes. He showed me the photo and I asked him to e-mail it to me. 

If you are interested in the loop, it is a half wave square loop fed with a closed stub that it is tapped to get a reasonable match. It is a  variation of this design:

< http://www.neasmn.org/squalo/squalo.htm >

I built it from 1/2 inch aluminum U-channel instead of copper pipe so that it would be light enough for mobile use. The side pieces are screwed together at the corners  with self tapping metal screws. The whole thing was a bit floppy, so I put a fiberglass rod from a driveway marker across it to reinforce it, and also a shorter piece across the open end of the stub. 

It all works OK, but the 2 element Yagi I put up when I stop blows it away.

I will be returning to Cedar Crest on Sunday along the same route, so look for me on six.  - Duffey