Nebraska QSO Party
Call: W0BH/M
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH/M
Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 22 NE counties
Operating Time (hrs): 11.5
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 2 0
40: 153 37
20: 270 311
15:
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------
Total: 425 348 0 Mults = 46 Total Score = 46,292
Club:
Comments:
This year's Nebraska QSO Party run almost didn't happen, but XYL Lorna (K0WHY)
was able to drive if we made a one day run, so that's what we did. We headed
out to Kearney on Friday evening, then west and north to the Custer / Lincoln /
Logan county line for a noon start. The weather was cloudy (so I could easily
see the computer screen), cool (which is much better than hot), not windy
(which is why I cancelled my Missouri QSO Pary run), and no rain (or blizzard
like last year) .. i.e. perfect QSO party weather.
My goal in this QSO party is to visit "new" Nebraska counties and break county
records. Each time we cross a county line, scoring and multipliers start over
again. We try to stay in the county long enough to capture the record, then
move on. Since I'm sharing the airwaves with the Florida QSO Party most of the
day, at least one multiplier is pretty much guaranteed!
This year I had lots more action than in the previous two years and the day
moved along quickly. Around 7:30 pm, I'd just finished a nice SSB run in Red
Willow county near the Kansas / Nebraska border. I told everyone I was moving
to CW and did, then made two quick contacts with KM1C and NT2A. I run my IC7000
with the power meter visible, so I immediately noticed my output power barely
registering. Conditions were so good that both ops heard me and I figured I'd
just switched to the wrong Hustler stack or the tuner hadn't made the switch. A
quick check proved both of those guesses incorrect. Since I dropped off the air
for no obvious reason, others soon called me. My receive was working fine, but
my output power couldn't have been more than a few watts. Seconds turned into
minutes as I tried other bands, modes and antennas with the same result.
Transmit was almost gone.
As luck would have it, we were just pulling into McCook, one of the very few
"larger" towns this trip. We were hungry anyway, so Lorna found a fast food
dispensary and went to get us some supper while I did more troubleshooting.
Nothing obvious, so I pulled out the backup IC706MkIIG and before Lorna was
back with the food had it completely installed with full power out. Icom made
both radios very interchangeable except for the faceplate bracket and the
remote head cable. I had both remote cables already installed "just in case"
and with some extra drilling, was able to mount the 7000 faceplate on top of
the 706 faceplate. Removing two screws let me remove the 7000 bracket to reveal
the 706 bracket underneath and the rest was easy.
No further equipment problems although I really missed the selectivity of the
7000 in the county line pileups. We were about an hour behind schedule by now
and I was planning to skip the detour north to catch Frontier and Gosper
counties, but Lorna said "go for it" even though that meant crossing the Kansas
border at midnight with a two hour drive home. Lucky we did as you'll see
shortly. Once the Florida QSO Party went QRT at 9:00pm, we had the bands to
ourselves and lots of new calls started appearing in my log. I kept trying 80m
but noticed a very high noise level and only managed two contacts all evening.
I'd planned the route to stay in Nebraska as long a possible, so we were in
Nuckolls county with only a short corner of Thayer county left when we stopped
on the outskirts of a small town for a quick stretch break. I noticed a car
following us and also appreciated the spotlight as I opened the back of the van
to refill my drink mug. The local female constable was quite interested in all
the antennas and what we were doing out so late at night (it was after
11:00pm). She soon started smiling as we explained, then warned us about severe
storms on our route home. We'd noticed some lighting far off but decided to put
off checking weather radio until we hit the Kansas border ...
... which we did about 11:50pm with a two hour drive home. A long but fun day
and both of us really appreciate you all riding along. The day wasn't over yet.
NOAA weather radio warned us of a severe thunderstorm dropping large hail
directly in our path moving northeast with us travelling directly south. The
report was already 15 minutes old and the lightning still seemed far away, so
we started heading for home. About 15 miles later most of the lightning was to
our east and there was traffic coming up the highway from the south. Suddenly
the rain really came down, pea-sized hail started hitting the van and we
couldn't see. No where to go, no underpass, so we pulled over and hoped. I've
done my share of storm spotting but always with a good idea of where the storm
was and helpful hams watching radar to keep me out of trouble. This was
different and very uncomfortable, but it was our lucky night. The hail stopped
and we continued. As we went through the town of Belleville mentioned in the
NOAA warning, the highway was completely covered with good sized hail for a
four or five mile stretch and we were really, really thankful we'd made that
half hour detour to the Fontier / Gosper county line. A half hour ago, this
would definately not have been the place to be. We made it home safely at
2:30am.
Stats
We operated 11:20, 773 Qs, 246 unique calls, 2 dupes, 978 miles.
States worked : 38
Canadian worked : 3
NE worked : 1
DX worked : 4 DL LY G HK
CW PH
--------------
80 2 0 = 2
40 153 37 = 190
20 270 311 = 581
--------------
425 348 = 773 Qs and 46 unique mults Final score: 46292*
Counties (in visited order)
* broke county record (17)
** established new county record (1)
1 CUST 30* Custer
2 LINC 30* Lincoln
3 LOGA 47* Logan
4 MCPH 35* McPherson
5 ARTH 33* Arthur
6 KEIT 68* Keith
7 GARD 40* Garden
8 DEUE 44** Deuel
9 PERK 35* Perkins
10 CHAS 18* Chase
11 DUND 32* Dundy
12 HAYE 35* Hayes
13 HITC 47* Hitchcock
14 REDW 35* Red Willow
15 FURN 60* Furnas
16 FRON 22 Frontier
17 GOSP 22* Gosper
18 HARL 48* Harlan
19 FRNK 42* Franklin
20 WEBS 27 Webster
21 NUCK 13 Nuckolls
22 THAY 10 Thayer
Special thanks to the following ops for 10 or more contacts:
52 N6MU
43 NT2A
39 KM1C
30 K7PWL
17 KO1U
13 K4XU
12 NU0Q WA4UNS
11 AC2AA KW3F NN8L
10 W0GXQ
W0BH Award Winner(s) Very Honorable Mention
--------------------------------------------------
Most overall Qs: N6MU/52 NT2A/43 KM1C/39
Most CW Qs: KM1C/28 KO1U/17 K7PWL/13
N6MU/28
NT2A/28
Most PH Qs: N6MU/24 K7PWL/17 NT2A/15
Most counties: KM1C/21 K7PWL/16 KO1U/14
N6MU/21
NT2a/21
It was fun putting Nebraska on during the "Year of the QSO Party". Lorna and I
both enjoy travelling this state and hope to put lots more counties on again
next year. We didn't have as many unexpected stops this year because Lorna
somehow forgot to bring along her birding binoculars. I suspect that will never
happen again since there are some "mystery" birds she's still pondering. Once
again, a BIG thanks to all!
73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why
PS The Kansas QSO Party is set for the last weekend in August with lots of
plaques, Kansas Konsumable awards, a youth category and of course 105 counties
to keep things interesting.
Check out the web site at http://www.ksqsoparty.org/ and put it on your
calendar. We certainly have!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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