Georgia QSO Party
Call: K4BAI/M
Operator(s): K4BAI, KU8E
Station: KU8E/M
Class: Rover Multi-Op LP
QTH: 27 GA counties
Operating Time (hrs): 14:31
Summary:
Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs
------------------------
160: 0 0
80: 39 0
40: 1063 0
20: 506 0
15: 0 0
10: 0 0
6: 0 0
------------------------
Total: 1608 0 CW-Dig Mults = 50 Ph Mults = 0 Total Score = 160,800
Club: Alabama Contest Group
Comments:
Like W4NZ/M, Murphy struck us repeatedly in this year's GQP. Before Jeff, KU8E,
took his family to OH for Spring break, he planned a 41-county route for us,
perhaps a bit ambitious, but mostly doable, and checked out the antennas and
the car for the trip. The Clarke family changed plans and returned home late
Friday night rather on Thursday, so there was little time for last minute
checks. When I arrived at Jeff's QTH about 12:30 PM, Jeff was unhappy with the
connector on one of the antenna feedlines and changed it out for a new one.
Because time was short, we hurried that chore and would regret it later.
However, it seemed fine when we tested it out. Jeff's Icom Pro was in the back
seat of his 1998 Toyota Avalon connected directly to the battery. I brought a
logging computer with NA programs created for every anticipated county. This
was a Dell which has a split hard drive and we use NA in Windows 98 and it
usually works very smoothly. That was connected through a transverted that was
powered through the cigarette lighter plug. We have had some problem with this
particular laptop in the past. The laptop was purchased to replace an older
one that had crashed (but we had backed it up before it crashed). At first we
had a hard time keeping this one charged up. I purchased a new battery for it
at Battery Source and it worked OK in GQP and FQP last year. We also were
taking a GPS with us.
We got started about on time from Jeff's driveway in HARRis County. I was
operating while Jeff got everything else gathered up and packed in the car.
We had a Hustler 15M resonator with a DX Engineering top hat for 20M and a
Hustler 20M resonator with DX Engineering top hat for 40M. For 80M, we had
just the Hustler 80M resonator. It had a narrow spot on 80M CW where the SWR
dropped to about 2 to one and I hooked up a MFJ mobile tuner to reduce that to
amost 1 to 1 from the transmitter. One base was on a trunk lid mount on the
right side of the trunk and the other was on a magnetic mount (tri point) on
the left side of the trunk. We had some strong cord around the two antennas
and anchored inside the back of the car to provide some guy like support for
the antennas. By using the antenna post 1 and 2 on the transceiver, we were
able to change bands between any two bands with the touch of a button on the
radio. Monitoring of 15M during the past few weeks indicated that 15M would
likely be useless, but we did listen once or twice and heard nothing on that
band and no one asked us to QSY to 15M.
20M seemed very weak and very long at the beginning of the contest, but we
tried both 20 and 40 in every county until we were in Crisp County, well after
dark, and we only made 3 QSOs on 20M. 40M was pretty good everything
considered, but we didn't hear any other GA stations on Saturday on 40M and
heard few signals from AL or SC. FL, NC, MS, and TN seemed to be mostly OK on
40M. We were surprised during the early afternoon to work as far away as NH
and WY. We worked OM2VL on 40M before 22Z and on 80M too. He had an
outstanding signal on 20, 40, and 80.
After we had gone about 10 miles from his house, Jeff realized he had left the
charger for his GPS at home and we stopped at a Best Buy in MUSCogee, my home
county, for him to pick up another. That resulted in more time being spent in
HARR and MUSC than we had expected and we got on to the next county,
CHATtahoochee, about 20Z. We had planned to spend Saturday night in Savannah,
all the way on the other side of the state, as the guests of Jere (KT4ZB) and
Conni and to have breakfast with some Savannah contesters Sunday morning before
the contest resumed. At this time, it seemed doubtful that we would get to
Savannah that night. Whenever the car was idling, the CW sent by the computer
got squirrelly and we received several comments about this during and after the
contest.
Things went nicely except for the computer sending occasionally sounding funny.
Jeff stopped for a quick bite to eat around 7 PM. He ate in the car with the
accelerator keeping the engine from running too slowly. We changed the 20M
antenna out for the 80M antenna in TURNer County. 80M sounded great.
It was quiet and signals were strong. We were surprised to work KO7X in WY and
OM2VL on 80M in the early evening, just after dark. It looked like a good night
for switching between 40 and 80. After the first run on 80 from Turner, I
pressed the button on the transceiver and went to 40. I worked N4CD with some
difficulty and then got no more calls for a minute or so. I then realized that
the SWR meter on the rig was showing infinity. So, I told Jeff, who was
driving, and we stopped at a rest area on I 75. This was about 8 PM with four
hours left on the first day. We spent most of the next two hours at that rest
stop trying to make the transceiver work. Unfortunately, the problem, which we
didn't immediately realize, was the new coax connector on the 40M antenna.
After proper diagnosis of the problem, the soldering iron was plugged into the
cigarette lighter and an attempt was made to solder a new connector onto the
40M coax. The soldering iron just barely would melt the solder and it seemed
impossible to get it properly connected. My assumption is that it was because
of the limited amperage allowed by the cigarette lighter plug, but don't know
that. Two of the coax connectors actually physically broke in the process. We
had a number of extra connectors and finally got one that we thought would work.
Jeff tried to get it to connect to the transceiver on both antenna post 1 and
antenna post 2. Maybe it worked for a second or two on one of the posts, but
generally the receiver seemed dead. He probably applied a little too much
physical pressure and then noticed that the plate on the rear of the
transceiver seemed loosed and one SO259 was wobbly.
So, we got out the spare rig, an Alinco DX70, that I inherited from the late
Cliff Watson, KR4M (ex K4ADU) about ten years ago. It is a very nice little
mobile/portable non-contest rig that even has a "narrow" CW filter. However, I
had had nothing to eat and by now it was past 10 PM and I couldn't remember how
to set up and operate that rig. We knew I would no longer be able to use my
paddle like I like to do a lot in pileups to keep the rhythm going when I may
mis=enter a call in the computer because we had been using the internal keyer
in the Icom and the Alinco doesn't have one. Jeff had brought along a keyer,
but we had no power source for it since it had been wired to take 12V from the
Icom auxiliary plug. We were both very tired and frustrated and talked about
"packing it in" and heading home. However, Jeff thought it would be best to
get some sleep and try to figure something out in the morning. So, we lost the
last four hours of Saturday night and ran only one county on 80M. Very sorry
about that. We went about 15 miles to Tifton, in TIFT county, stopped for some
supper, and found a motel near the Interstate. We got into the room about 11:15
PM. We left a wake up call for 8 AM, keeping in mind the contest start time on
Sunday of 10 AM.
Jeff spent about the next two hours checking the internet to try to figure out
who had covered what counties and what were the most needed counties left on
our list, diagnosing the problem with his rig, and mapping out a new route for
Sunday. The resistors connected to each SO259 had each been physically broken
in two during our efforts to reconnect the 40M feedline.
I got up at 7:15 AM, went downstairs, ate breakfast, and re-read the operating
manual for the DX70 for the first time in several years. I made notes and knew
exactly what I had to do to get it to operate at maximum efficiency for our
situation. Jeff came down about 8:30 or so and unlocked the car and we plugged
the DX70 into the transverter and I made all the internal adjustments that
seemed to be required. I did not transmit, since I wasn't sure which antenna
was hooked up to the rig, but I did hear a UP station on 20M, which sounded
pretty good for DX, but too long for most US contacts. Turned out that was the
20M antenna. I then decided to start the car and try to transmit with the DX70.
The battery wouldn't turn over. It seemed that the battery was dead. So, I
had to find Jeff and then called AAA for a battery jump off. They promised a
response within 45 minutes, which would put it about 30 minutes after the
contest started again. Eventually, Jeff found the motel maintenance man and he
jumped us off and we cancelled the AAA call. Jeff thinks that he may have left
the dome light on the night before.
Eventually, we got set up and on the way, losing about an hour on Sunday
morning. We ran some counties in the vicinity of Tifton and, when it seemed
that it would work OK, we headed toward Waycross and a few counties in the SE
corner of the state where no activity other than by us had been promised. At a
Wal Mart, Jeff stopped and got a device to connect the transverter to his cable
to the battery so that the computer would not be powered through the cigarette
lighter. This seems to have solved our computer problems. The computer did
lock up twice during all of Sunday and I we had to re-boot, but that seems to
happen to all computers from time to time.
20M was slow at first, but eventually opened up strong to Europe and the west
coast of the USA. The W1, W2, WI, MI, MN, KS, TX stations came in pretty good
most of the day. Later on, we worked N8II in WV once and a few IN stations on
20M plus one QSO with TN and one with AR. So 20 got shorter, but we never had
much propagation to the PA/VA/OH area or points closer. The DX stations who
worked us are to be congratulated on good ears and perserverance. They were:
OM2VL, DK2OY, PA3ARM, SP5SA, DL3GA, OH3IF, LY5A, DL9LM, DL/WA4PXP, OK1VD,
DL7JAN, OK1ACF, LZ4UU, DL3DXX, DL4CW, DL5MC, UU5JL, S53AF, DM3ZF, and F.WA4PXP,
plus KH6LC in HI. Any DX station may request a bureau QSL by e-mail, but please
send complete QSO information since the computer files are separate by each
county. Any other QSL requests by mail will be promptly answered. (QSLs for
W4AN in SPAL, from the NQ4I contest station, may also be requested by e-mail to
me for DX stations and by regular mail for other or for DX stations who want a
direct mail QSL.)
We missed five US states: AK, SD, ND, UT, and VT. We worked Canadian mults:
VE1, VY2, VE2, VE3, VE7. Thanks for all QSOs.
You haven't lived until you have run intense pileups for nine hours using an
Alinco DX70 as a receiver! Thanks for all the fun.
We ended up running 27 counties. We had planned on 41. We ran some not on the
original list and missed many on the original list.
We hope to be better prepared for the Florida QSO Party on the weekend of April
24 and 25, when we will be QRV as W4AN/M in many FL counties. The computer
problems seem to be solved, the antenna feedline will be repaired, we will have
a keyer and paddle to keep up the rhythm, and we will use Jeff's oldie but
goodie Kenwood contest radio. Again, the Alinco will be back up.
I did get one report of a slight chirp on Sunday when we were using the Alinco
rig. It didn't chirp when KR4M used it, but he was using it from a fixed
station with a switching power supply. If anyone else noticed this or any other
problem with the signal on Sunday, please let me know.
Anybody who actually read all of this deserves some kind of a reward.
Thanks to all of your for your support of this year's Georgia QSO Party. Next
year on the second weekend in April, we will have the 50th anniversary GQP.
Rusty, K4BVD (now W6OAT), put together for the Columbus Amateur Radio Club the
first GA QSO Party in May 1962. If any of you was active in that first GQP,
please let me know. We are planning for some type of special celebration next
year.
I hope we got all 159 counties on this year, but I fear we did not, largely due
to our problems with Murphy's law. Sorry about that.
73, John, K4BAI and Jeff, KU8E.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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