Thanks to all who worked or tried to work me mobile on my trip back to Cleveland from Melbourne, Florida. I operated while in motion on SO-67, AO-27 and AO-51. Equipment was the Kenwood V7A and a Larsen dual band mag mount on the trunk lid, no preamps.

SO-67 has a dynamite signal and it was easy to hear the bird, however, with the road noise at 70mph, the weaker audio made it difficult to copy those whose audio was on the weak side to begin with. Even so I made some good contacts on two passes.

AO-27 was also very good although not as strong as SO-67. I did manage to work KD8KSN while in EM94 right at the end of the pass.

AO-51 was the real workhorse with it's high power output. Copying in the mobile was fairly good but you could really hear the antenna elevation pattern effect as the bird went over. It was really nice to work Yuri, UT1FG/MM, while in EM95 on I-77 in Charlotte NC.

The last AO-51 pass was blocked right in the middle of the pass because I came up on the 5 mile grade over the Blue Ridge Parkway. I kept hearing WA4HFN calling and finally got into the bird just seconds before it disappeared over the ridge. This was in EM96 just inside the Virginia line. CO6CBF was also worked earlier on this pass.

Headphones would have helped a lot. I didn't think to have them available. More contacts could have been made if I had been able to stop since the mobile fading would have been minimized.

If anyone needs a card for a new grid, just send me an email with the qso info. No SASE needed.

The trip was 1100 miles and took 17 hours. It was in the 30's here. Yuk!

73, John K8YSE