Tennessee QSO Party
Call: N5WR
Operator(s): N5WR
Station: N5WR
Class: SO MobileCW LP
QTH: TN - 25 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 9
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs Mults
-----------------------------------
160:
80: 107 35
40: 697 52
20: 168 27
15:
10:
6:
2:
222:
432:
-----------------------------------
Total: 972 0 0 137 Total Score = 399,492
Club: Tennessee Contest Group
Comments:
Since moving to Joplin from Chattanooga this summer I have been quite busy with
my new job and haven't had a lot of time for radio. So, when I saw I had the
weekend free for the TQP I started making plans to make a mobile run. I planned
out a route in the western half of the state through many counties I haven't
been to before. I added another antenna to my setup as well, a Hi-Q 3/80,
installed on the passenger side quarter panel, to go along with my Hi-Q 4/80
which on the drivers side. Both have 102" whips and both are excellent
antennas. I also have a ball mount on the hatchback trunk lid which had a 15
meter Hamstick during the day and a 20 meter Hamstick in the evening. This
allowed me to switch between 3 bands easily. Once again I used a digital voice
recorder to record the contest and generated the log post contest. I tried
calling CQ several times on 15 meters but never made a single QSO. Conditions
and activity both seemed to be down a bit this year.
I drove down Saturday night and stayed in a Holiday Inn near Memphis, and there
was a monster truck convention going on at the hotel, so when I arrived at 1am
the parking lot was full of guys with big trucks drinking beer, and they all
stared at my little Hyundai with big antennas as I parked between two trucks
with tires taller than my car. I slept well despite the big party. The next
morning I realized I had forgotten my road atlas, so I went to 4 different gas
stations trying to find a map. It seems that nobody sells maps anymore, I
suppose because everyone has a GPS. I have my entire route entered into the
GPS, each county crossing is plotted out by latitude and longitude, but I still
like to have an old fashioned map just in case. Thankfully Wal-Mart still sells
maps, and it is a good thing they do because I would end up needing it later in
the day.
Started out in Shelby county and headed west for most of the afternoon. The
weather was nice with mostly overcast skies and temperatures in the low 80s,
there was occasional rain but for the most part I dodged the big storms. 40
meters was open the whole contest and was the most productive band as usual, 20
was open during the day to the west coast, New England, and parts of Canada, but
I was never able to get much of a run going on 20. I was cruising along through
McNairy county when I realized my GPS was trying to take me the wrong
direction. It occasionally does this when my planned route designed to hit a
county line is not necessarily the shortest path. So I had to stop and get out
the road atlas, and when I turned the car around my Winkeyer flew off and hit
the console. When I started sending CW again something was wrong. Somehow the
paddles were reversed and I was sending dits instead of dahs and vice versa. I
remembered the Winkeyer command to reverse paddles, so was able to correct this
without too much trouble. So I started moving working stations again, but was
still making lots of CW sending mistakes. I finally figured out that the Keyer
was no longer in Iambic mode, which is the mode I prefer. I did not know the
Winkeyer command for this. I stopped the car and tried to get on the internet
on my phone, but being out in the middle of nowhere there was no internet. I
could have just plugged the Key directly into the rig, but I like to have the
Keyer to send CQ and TU messages so that I am not sending 100% of everything by
hand. I played around with the paddle a bit and got to where I could send
reasonably well so decided to just carry on, Iambic mode or not. So I apologize
if your call had a Q or a Y in it because those seemed to be the hardest to send
and ended up being an O on first attempt several times.
I stopped for gas about half way through the contest in Lewis county, replaced
the 15 meter Hamstick with a 20, and moved the Hi-Q 4/80 from 20 to 80, and
kept that configuration the rest of the way. When I got to the Maury county
line, I discovered a bridge on the Natchez Parkway was completely out being
under construction, so once again I had to find a new route. I had to backtrack
a bit to make it onward to Hickman and Dickson county. It was pretty smooth
sailing for the remainder of the contest as I headed north then back east
towards the northwest corner of the state, with 100+ rates the last 4 hours,
culminating with a 142 hour the final hour of the contest, when 40 and 80 were
both very productive and the pileups were pretty good on 40. Was able to hit
all of my planned counties except for Maury.
Thanks for all the QSOs and hope to see everyone in the next contest, not sure
which one for me but maybe Sweepstakes in November.
Most QSOs: AA3B (36), K8MFO (29), KV8Q (28), VE3KZ (23), NT2A (22), N4GG (20),
K4BAI (18), K5WE (18), W1END (17)
Most DX: OE3KE (8), G3XVR (3), PA3ARM (3)
73, Erik N5WR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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