Oklahoma QSO Party - 2021
Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH
Class: Mobile AssistedMixed LP
QTH: 10 OK counties
Operating Time (hrs): 5.2
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 20 0
40: 160 40
20: 225 312
15:
10:
6:
----------------------------
Total: 405 352 0 Mults = 53 Total Score = 104,307
Club:
Comments:
Logs have been submitted to the QSO party sponsor. The totals and points include
27 additional contacts and 1575 additional points from Kansas on Saturday from
my home QTH. That's my solution to getting all my OKQP contacts to 3830 for the
State QSO Party Challenge. Score also includes 5000 mobile bonus points for
working at least 10 stations in each county on Sunday. My actual OKQP/m totals
for Sunday are 730 contacts and 102,732 points.
2021 Oklahoma QSO Party by Bob Harder, W0BH
Has it really been over half a year since I last went mobile in a QSO party?
That had to change and did as we planned a Sunday run to Oklahoma. Dusting off
the trusty Chevy Astro (literally), charging and installing external batteries,
and tuning antennas for the IC7000 were familiar tasks the week before. Both XYL
Lorna/k0why and I spent Saturday recovering from our second COVID shots on
Friday, but by Sunday morning we were more than ready to go. It was fun working
Oklahoma stations and mobiles from the home QTH on Saturday in between long
naps.
The Oklahoma border is an hour and a half south of our south-central Kansas QTH.
The forecast was for morning rain followed by clearing, and that's exactly what
happened. One final heavy downpour just north of the border completed our car
wash, then we saw blue sky as we crossed into Kay county with five minutes to
go.
I really like my Hustler antennas (two triples for CW/SSB 40-10, and one single
for 80CW), but as they age, moisture can get inside and short out the coils. I
left them in the van during the rainy drive, so we continued on to a rest area
to fire things up. At the rest area, travelers were sitting on benches enjoying
the morning sun. One masked YL was curious enough to come over and ask what we
were doing, so I took some time to explain our hobby / sport. Sounded crazy even
to me!
I had plenty of time built into the ten-county schedule with the goal of making
as many contacts as possible while helping to cover the 77 counties that Connie
needed. Eight out of ten of my counties were unique, so I was expecting good
action. Because of the rain, no three- or four-county lines this time around. I
did plan to stop at as many lines as needed if there were still ops to be
worked.
With Lorna in the driver's seat, we were off at 1523Z (and yes, I did remember
Daylight Savings Time started this morning but Lorna didn't. She thought she had
another hour of sleep :- ) After just one fruitless CQ on 7037, I quickly worked
NF0N, WA8ZBT and W0ZQ and we were off. Signals were loud at first then dropped
off, maybe from the power lines as we turned west. As we got closer to noon, 20m
really picked and I was able to go "around the bands" 7037 - 14037 -
14237 - 7197 in most counties. I used the FunSpots page from the OKQP web site
to post my changes and tried to respond to requests for 3537 from the close-in
Oklahoma stations. I need to get a cell phone holder so the spots are right in
front of me. I missed some spot messages because of that, but I do try to read
them if I'm not too busy in a pileup.
It's always fun when you all let me know some of your goals. W0SK from TN called
me on 40SSB in Grant county to let me know that he needed my next county,
Alfalfa, for his last Oklahoma county. I had a big CW pileup in Alfalfa and
worked him without realizing it was him. When I got to the end of Alfalfa county
and got back on 7197, I was planning to stop on the line because I was worried
that I had missed him. Just as I had that thought, he called in and we worked ..
again as it turned out!
The only Murphy moment (a new one) was when the radio suddenly went dark. When I
turned it back on, it immediately went off again. Then it worked for a few
minutes before repeating the cycle. It wasn't RF because it would also go off
when I wasn't transmitting. The radio wasn't overheating because the temp gauge
showed nice and cool thanks to the external fan blowing over the cooling fins.
It wasn't low battery because my battery booster provides a steady 13.8v and the
external battery showed nearly full. Perhaps it was a loose power connection?
Lorna stopped the van and I recycled the booster and went through the power
connectors all the way back to the battery. I didn't find anything obvious, but
after that, no more problems. The jury is still out on this one.
After that 15 minutes of power problems it was smooth sailing. Because of the
rains, I planned all paved roads, so the only time we got red Oklahoma mud on
the tires was at county line stops where we pulled off the pavement. Lorna got
some of her new book read and even took a nap at one of our 30 minute
county-line stops. You all kept me way too busy to take a nap! I averaged 142
Qs/hr over the 5.2 hours of operating time .. a record for me in the OKQP as you
can see in the stats below.
Noble is a big county, but the I-35 speed limit made up for the size as we
headed north. It looked like I might have 3 minutes back in Kay after we crossed
the line. I chose SSB as the mode so I could easily let the last stations know
about the "new" county, and I worked ten of them before time ran out.
One of them was KB4CG/Jack in VA, who had a nice comment about it in his 3830
post. Happy to help!
When time ran out at 2100Z and after a nice chat on 20SSB with some of the ops,
I realized the WI mult was missing from my log. I should have gone looking and
I'm sure it would have been an easy mult because it was WIQP Sunday. I also
noticed no DX contacts for the first time ever. Not even OM2VL. Someone told me
he was calling once and I listened but I couldn't hear him. Conditions will get
better.
It was still a nice, sunny day as the south wind blew us back to Kansas. During
the OKQP, I worked some ID stations in the IDQP and got home in plenty of time
to work a number of WIQP stations for the State QSO Party Challenge. Lorna said
later that this was the most relaxing QSO party run she's ever had which made it
all worthwhile!
Stats
Operated 5.2 hours, 738 Qs, 246 unique calls, 8 dupes, 230 OKQP miles (413 total
miles).
States not worked : AK HI IA ND SD VT
Canadian mults worked : BC MB ON SK
OK worked : 7 counties : CAR COM COT MUS OKL OKM TIL
DX worked : none (first time)
W0BH Rates (includes dupes)
Block QSOs/hr --- 2021 2020 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1400-1959 0 = 0--111--76---79---95---104---51--119---66 (Sat)
2000-0100 0 = 0---72--99---87---108--126---97--104---78 (Sat)
Sunday 738 = 142---71--91---98----97--101---71---82---79 (Sun)
County Breakdown (in visited order)
01 KAY 59 Kay
02 GNT 75 Grant
03 ALF 47 Alfalfa
04 MAJ 46 Major
05 BLA 86 Blaine
06 KIN 96 Kingfisher
07 LOG 129 Logan
08 GAR 81 Garfield
09 PAY 62 Payne
10 NOB 49 Noble
Special thanks to my top scorers:
27: KI6RRN
26: KA6BIM
18: N8II
13: WC7Q
12: AA4TI VE7CV
11: VE3YT VE5KS
10: KB4CG NS2N WA8ZBT
09: KI0Y N5DO W8BZY WA1SAY WA3RHW/4
08: N6MU W5CW W5TM WB8WKQ
07: AC5O K0AP K4VBM N6GP NF0N WN4AFP WZ6ZZ08
06: KE8FT W1SSN W2CVW WD5CSK
05: AB7RW AD1C K7SS N7GR NN2NN NY9P W0SK W4SIG W8OP
OK Mobiles Worked: none
Bonus Counties: 10
W0BH Award Winners
----------------- First Place ----- Very Honorable Mention -------------
Most overall Qs - KI6RRN/27 ----------- KA6BIM/26 ---- N8II/18
Most CW Qs ------ KI6RRN/14 ----------- KA6BIM/13 ---- N8II/10
Most PH Qs ------ KA6BIM/KI6RRN/13----- WA1SAY/9 ----- N8II/8
Most counties --- KA6BIM/WC7Q/N8II/10 - AA4TI/KI0Y/KI6RRN/WA1SAY/9
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afterwards
Thanks to Connie/K5CM (and Pam/N5KW) for organizing us all once again! We hadn't
been out mobile since last August, so it felt especially good this year. And
thanks to all who took a moment to chat as we drove along.
The 2021 Kansas QSO Party is scheduled for August 28-29, the last weekend in
August. With 105 counties, we need all the help we can get, so mobiles, head
this way! Everyone else, thanks for the Qs in Oklahoma, and see you down the
log in 2021 ..
73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why
QPC #7
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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