Georgia QSO Party
Call: N4G
Operator(s): W5JR N5ZZ WK4U
Station: W5JR
Class: Rover Multi-OpCW LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs
------------------------
160: 0 0
80: 289 0
40: 834 0
20: 684 0
15: 18 0
10: 0 0
6: 0 0
------------------------
Total: 1825 0 CW-Dig Mults = 42 Ph Mults = 0 Total Score = 153,300
Club: North Fulton Amateur Radio League
Comments:
Decided to switch from Single to Multi-Op Rover this year, including two
stations. The normal N4N call from previous years was in use for a FL event the
same weekend, so selected N4G.
I set up the rover platform with a pair of Flex 6300's using outboard Dunestar
D-600 multiband filters. One quickly discovers that running two HF mobile
stations is much more than just double the hardware and effort, but it all
played well together with both antennas - HiQ 580 and Little Tarheel - mounted
on the back of the Yukon in the same places as last year's Single Op effort.
Remote manual tuning was used versus auto-tuning. Having the radio client and
N1MM+ on a single laptop per station allowed for adequate room for the Ops to
"comfortably" sit side by side in the second row seating with all of
the gear bonded together and securely strapped down in the back. Rather than
beefing up the Yukon 12v electrical system, power was supplied by a Honda
EU2000i strapped down on the trailer hitch cargo carrier feeding a pair of UPS
units which worked great when the Honda ran out of gas a few minutes short of a
planned stop.
It was a really slow start with few signals/prop making us nervous about
achieving a good score but the rate picked up each hour, restoring confidence
thing might turn out. Managed to average 91+ Q rate despite the slow start and
time off each day for food and fuel. 80m was rocking late Saturday night and
probably could have moved there sooner as 20m seemed to close earlier than
anticipated. On Sunday, 20m stayed open to the end with 90+ per hour in the
last two. This is the first time I've had the Sunday Q total exceed the
Saturday total.
The "fly by wire" radios were up to the challenge. Once up and
running, the Flex's were stable. We appeared to have a power supply problem on
one where it turned off a couple of times. A pair of Flex Controls handled the
RIT chores. N1MM+ fed a pair of USB Winkey's to generate the CW. A pair of
Denkovi (Bulgarian) USB 8 relay boards were managed by K5FR's DDUtil program to
drive the Dunestar's for automatic band following. There was virtually zero
interaction between the two stations other than the expected harmonic
relationships despite the antennas being only 5 feet apart. No vehicle/engine
noises. No LAN birdies, but we didn't operate on 10m. And no ferrites were
needed or used, probably due to the attention to bonding the equipment to the
body, which I bonded to the frame years ago.
If we do a two station Multi-Op again next year, the Flex's are definitely our
radio of choice given the smaller footprint at the Op position. The radios were
operating with Flex's SmartSDR v 1.4.3. Maybe next year we should use N4F to
highlight the "Flex". It's the same length as N4G.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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