Florida QSO Party - 2020
Call: K8MR
Operator(s): K8MR
Station: K8MR
Class: SOABMixed LP
QTH: 7 Counties
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
40: 56
20: 867 6
15: 39
10:
--------------------
Total: 942 6 CW Mults = 69 Ph Mults = 2 Total Score = 274,060
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
In a normal year this would have been a single operator, no driver, two day
mobile effort. Of course this is not a normal year, so this effort will go in as
a check log. But I post here to report on what went on.
This was a one day operation, Sunday only. On Saturday I was the "Virtual
Mobile" in Sarasota county.
While Florida has had a "stay at home" order (likely soon to be lifted
or eased), permitted activities include golf, fishing and Worldwide Wrestling
Entertainment. All of which have far less social distancing than driving around
in my own car. I had a total of one human encounter, walking past a clerk on my
way the bathroom in a gas station in Moore Haven.
In addition to the COVID19 issues, after months of drought, Thursday night and
Friday we had over four inches of rain here in Sarasota. That would have made
for lousy travel, but fortunately it had mostly passed by Sunday. I did get a
few showers in Highland county, which turned out to enough for the windshield
wipers to take off the modest number of lovebugs I had collected earlier in the
day.
My goal was to activate some rare counties (five of them) and have the rush of
running great pileups. I was successful at both. Since I was not concerned with
running up a score, I skipped phone operation, other than accepting requests
from OM2VL to move to SSB, plus one QSO with WA3HAE who followed us up to SSB.
Several others asked for SSB while I was driving, but I don't do phone while
driving - too distracting.
I got a late start. I woke up at 6:30AM to the sound of pouring rain. Since I
had to hook up all the equipment in the car after Saturday's VM effort, I went
back to sleep until 1200Z.
Results by county (40/20/15 CW, not including the few SSB QSOs):
MTE 0/93/0
DES 4/114/0
HAR 3/164/0
HIG 1/123/0
OKE 1/96/0
GLA 1/181/12
HEN 46/96/27
Forty was never productive. I suspect those in 40 meter range, but not 20 meter
range, had given up by Sunday. In the last hour I went to 15 while driving the
last few miles in Glades, and actually found a nice opening to the west coast
and Arizona, plus a few midwest folks mixed in.
And the pileups, especially in Glades and Hendry, were intense. At times it
sounded a bit like an FT8 pileup - a single carrier, plus a few folks who were
smart enough to not zero beat the mob.
I hope I made things interesting for all those elsewhere stuck at home
practicing social distancing in front of their radio. And I hope that we'll all
be back for a more normal FQP in 2021, chasing the hoards of mobiles around the
state.
73 - Jim K8MR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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