Terry W8ZN and I (Andy K1RA) went into the 2026 ARRL September VHF Contest with modest expectations. We wanted to prove that the gray van, the antennas, the radios, and the two of us could still survive a full rover weekend. We were not trying to recreate our 2020 winning pace. We planned five familiar grids, sensible operating windows, and enough sleep to remain friends by Sunday night.

The weekend answered the basic question. We made 464 valid contacts on ten bands from 50 MHz through 10 GHz, activated five grids, and finished with a preliminary post-contest score of 91,045. We also hacked and bypassed a leaking heater core, drove through fog and rain with broken windshield wipers, straightened microwave loopers on a mountaintop, and replaced a 2.3 GHz antenna after a tree branch snapped it on the way down. In other words, it was a typica ...