Louisiana QSO Party
Call: NO5W
Operator(s): NO5W
Station: NO5W
Class: Rover LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 9
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 241 29
15: 115 20
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------------------
Total: 356 0 49 0 Total Score = 70,526
Club:
Comments:
The above score includes 750 points for activating 15 parishes.
Its 2345 UTC and I?ve just made my last LA QP QSO on 15M with N6MU after moving
there to avoid the pre-sprint warm up and ensuing fun on 20M. I check and the
logging program is showing 167 crow-flying miles home to Houston from my current
location in Natchitoches parish. It?s time to pull the plug on NO5W?s expedition
in the 2005 LA QP. The thought occurs that it would be fun to have a go at a few
sprint QSOs from the mobile but I decide that would be unpopular with the driver
who has just spent nine hours driving this radio guy across 15 Louisiana
counties covering 420 miles. And though she?s not a radio contester she would
easily detect the change in my operating activities from so slo--oow to frantic
bedlam! So its QRT, remove ham sticks from the roof of the Pathfinder, and
settle into the driver?s seat for the 167 miles. Hmm, should be arriving home
just before the end of the sprint, will have plenty of time to reflect on the
day?s activities (and inactivities) in the LA QP. Plenty of time for?
Thoughts on the 2005 LA QP:
Motivation ? It takes a bit of motivation to get out and about in your own state
party but to do another state takes even more. But I had wanted to operate the
LA QP mobile for some time since that?s where I first got the radio bug and
emerged as newly minted novice KN5MPM back in 1957. When planning the trip the
realization hit that just to get to the LA border from Houston and back was
going to be 400 miles. However, opportunity knocked in the form of a business
trip to New Orleans for the Monday after the LA QP. How convenient, we?d drive
over, instead of fly, and work the LAQP in the process. Not too long after
announcing the developing plans in late January on the County Hunter?s website
the opportunity was modified by a summons to appear for jury duty on the very
Monday that I was to be in New Orleans ? darn. I wondered if they would
understand that I needed to be in New Orleans on business and for a QSO Party ?
not much chance of that and the summons said I needed to be 70 to be excused ?
don?t want to go there just yet! So undaunted we decided that, what the heck, if
K5OT can drive 1100 miles just to get from WI to operate in the TX QP then we
can stand the 400 or so. So we modified the linear trip into a looping one and
would drive over late Friday afternoon to get a fresh start around Lake Charles
in Calcasieu. And from there ?
The Trip and Contest ? Having never operated the LA QP from either side I wasn?t
sure what to expect in terms of activity. LA QP is not one of the biggies on the
QP scene but surely there were county hunters out there that needed some
parishes and some mobile ops in LA to give out a few. However, the fact that
only one county hunter responded to the invitation to send me an email of needed
counties led me to think that maybe all of LA had been worked out. Maybe I
would go there, send out a few CQs, and no one would call. That turned out not
to be the case as there were a good number of folks on the other side looking
for a party. The ingredient that seemed to be missing the most was active
mobiles ? I got the impression that there were only two of us. With that level
of activity its difficult to keep interest up but there were a number of folks
that stayed with me most of the day including: N6MU(30), W2LHL(25), KO1U(24),
K4MUT(20), N2CQ(18). Thanks to these ops and many others who contributed to the
totals and made the trip worthwhile.
Leaving out of Calcasieu we wondered awhile south of I-10 and then eventually
made our way to Lafayette where, after a brief detour south to St. Martin and
Iberia, we headed northwest over to St. Landry, Evangeline, Allen, Rapides,
Vernon and eventually ending up in Beauregard reaching there around 2:30 CST. We
had originally planned to end in Beauregard around 6:00 pm so it seemed way too
early to quit so we decided to grab some lunch and gas and head north to put on
a few more. That?s when the bad decision was made to head northeast to pick up
Natchitoches and then maybe with a quick run up I-49 to end in Sabine and then
back home across the Toledo Bend Reservoir into Texas. The decision to go from
Vernon to Natchitoches was not good because it required a long trip through
Vernon which we had already worked out just after entering Vernon while sitting
to see if an accident would be cleared out. To compound the bad decision we also
missed a turn and wound up going to Alexandria deep into Rapides which had
earlier given us one of our best runs so that was non-productive time also. So
the additional time ended up netting only one additional county with 18 Qs. Not
what we had in mind at 2:30 as we entered the DeRidder Pizza Hut nor at 3:15 on
exit!
In total fifteen counties in mostly southwestern LA were activated with the
following results: Acadia(31), Allen(28), Beauregard(30), Calcasieu(19),
Cameron(14), Evangeline(30), Iberia(12), Jefferson Davis(19), Lafayette(37),
Natchitoches(18), Rapides(36), St. Landry(23), St. Martin(8), Vermilion(16), and
Vernon(42).
I certainly appreciate all of the above stations and many others that
contributed to the QSO and Mult totals and for sticking around considering the
limited mobile activity. I also understand from some reports that there were
many callers who I did not respond to and I apologize if you were one of those.
The QRN along the I-10 corridor was very high and many of the signals that I did
work were barely S5.
On the other hand maybe it was all that alligator I ate in Calcasieu on Friday
night!
Happy trails,
73/Chuck/NO5W
Equipment: ICOM 706MKIIG, 20/15 Hamsticks, Pathfinder, CQ/X de NO5W Homebrew
Logging Software, Garmin Street Pilot III GPS, Dell Latitude D400, Palm Paddle,
WinKey External Keyer, Keyspan USBx4RS232 Port Expander.
The logging software also logs the GPS coordinates of each QSO in a form
suitable for importing into Streets and Trips. Send me an email if you would
like a "GPS-enabled QSL".
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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