New England QSO Party
Call: K1EP/M
Operator(s): K1EP
Station: K1EP/M
Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: Subaru
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs
------------------------
80: 0 0
40: 149 0
20: 311 6
15: 4 0
10: 0 0
------------------------
Total: 464 6 Mults = 279 Total Score = 258,354
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Once again, the weather cooperated this weekend. Actually, it was quite hot on
Saturday and the sun was bright. That made it tough to read the laptop. You
had to pay attention to the direction you parked the car so that the glare was
minimal on the laptop. As you can see, 40 and 20 were the bands I stuck to most
of the time. I didn't hear much activity on 15 and didn't even go to 10. I
should have tried 80, but with a 3 foot antenna, I figured it wasn't worth it.
The station consisted of a 706MkIIG, an Outbacker Stealth, and CT DOS. The
addition of CW paddle input to CT helped, as I now had a key with me and could
answer people! If you haven't operated mobile CW before or from a crowded car
seat, you have to understand to be patient with an op that is doing that. You
are in a tangle of wires from headsets, computers, power, keys, etc. Sometimes
you can't just respond back fast. Typing on a smaller laptop keyboard stuffed
in front of the steering wheel makes for many unintentional mistakes too. But
in spite of all that it was fun. One time I tried to call someone on 40M to no
avail. I couldn't understand what the problem was, until I realized that I had
the antenna on 20M. To go to 40CW, I had to add a capacitance clip on the
stinger of the antenna. It was a clip from a badge that included a safety pin.
To make the antenna work on 80M, I had to open the safety pin! I didn't have
any encounters with locals or officials anywhere, so that was a plus. I found
some really nice locations with awesome views. Thanks for all the Q's and sorry
I had problems with some of you. Sometimes the local noise of cars made it
tough. I figured out that you can't park in a lot that has a Dunkin' Donuts
drive in. There is a constant stream of traffic, even at 9AM Sunday morning!
Being out in the country helped with noise, although one location in Maine had a
high noise floor. Otherwise it was rather quiet. No RFI lockup issues at all,
for which I was grateful. You really need a driver for a contest like this. I
tried to plan a route that would allow for less driving time, but still hitting
many counties. I did 16 counties, but also logged around 680 miles this
weekend. Here is a county breakdown (I think, as I still have to merge the
logs).
Q Q Pts States Countries
ANDME 58 116 23 6
CALVT 21 40 8 4
CUMME 35 70 17 3
ESSMA 38 76 21 3
GRANH 11 22 5 1
KENME 33 66 16 5
MERNH 22 44 13 1
MIDMA 25 50 14 0
ORAVT 29 56 9 4
ROCNH 15 30 11 0
SAGME 41 82 21 4
STRNH 23 46 14 1
SUFMA 25 50 14 0
SULNH 41 82 25 2
WNDVT 29 56 18 2
YORME 20 40 14 0
926 243 36 = 258,354
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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