Ohio QSO Party
Call: W8AV
Operator(s): AF8A, W8AV
Station: W8AV
Class: Mobile LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80:
40:
20:
15:
10:
--------------------
Total: 378 22 CW Mults = 50 Ph Mults = 14 Total Score = 49,792
Club:
Comments:
What an experience this was! Gary and I planned to do a simple 12 county mobile
operation due to the high gas prices. Since we are veterans of many mobile
operations in both the OQP and MiQP, we thought this would be a simple
operation. Little did we know that this would become a major production!
First of all the Hustler mobile antenna slid off the car during assembly
damaging the 20 meter resonator. Thankfully, K8MFO had a 20 meter resonator
from his county hunting days that he was glad to lend us. The resonator was
installed on the new four antenna hub and the 80 through 15 antennas were
tuned. Unfortunately, we forgot to pack the 75 meter Hamstick which left us
out of luck on 75 SSB.
Secondly, Gary sold his Icom 736 a couple years ago to an inactive ham who got
back on the air so we decided to press one of my trusty 930's into service and
run it off an inverter. The radio was installed but the inverter was not beefy
enough to power the radio. K8MFO to the rescue again. We borrowed his 706
MK-2G and used this radio for the operation. In spite of all this last minute
"seat-of-our-pants-flying" we managed to get on the air within two minutes of
the start of the contest. We had to start from Wayne County instead of our
planned start in Holmes but arrived at the Holmes County line withing 20
minutes of getting on the road.
Things were pretty much trouble free during the contest with the exception of
the electronic keyer locking up a couple times (sorry K8CC, the first time was
when we were trying to work you on 40 meters in Crawford County) and when we
had a bit of trouble keeping the match on the Hustler antenna when moving to 40
meter SSB. We found out when we arrived back at W8AV after the contest that the
fiberglass for that supports the resonators had loosened up a bit in the mag
mount on the trunk and causing this problem.
Rates in some counties were good but at about 2300Z 40 and 80 seemed to go dead
when we were in Crawford and Seneca Counties. We heard reports that the heavy
QRN on 80 made it tough to hear the mobiles and 40 had already gone long which
explained this problem. However, we could never really get anything going on
SSB most of the time. Thanks to all that heard us and gave Q's and mults on
that mode.
County totals:
County/CW Q's/SSB Q's
ASHL 30 0
CRAW 26 1
COSH 30 3
HOLM 27 2
HURO 11 0
KNOX 43 5
LORA 17 0
MARI 47 2
MEDI 38 0
MORR 53 9
SENE 23 0
WAYN 33 0
Thanks to all that worked us in all the counties. We don't hvae a breakdown on
who we worked the most but N4PN and WA2VYA immediately come to mind as being
there whenever we crossed into a new one. Also a HUGE thanks to Don, K8MFO who
saved our bacon by lending us mucho stuff to get us on the air. The only thing
that would have made the contest better was having a chiropractor on board to
get the kinks out of our bodies from sitting in the back seat of my 2001 Chevy
Cavalier!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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