California QSO Party
Call: K6C
Operator(s): K6ENT, W1SRD, KF6KGO, N6DE
Station: K6C
Class: Cnty Exped HP
QTH: Colusa County
Operating Time (hrs): 21.5
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160:
80: 64 75
40: 70 78
20: 111 290
15: 289 380
10: 66 359
6:
2:
--------------------
Total: 600 1181 Mults = 58 Total Score = 241,396
Club:
Comments:
We went on an expedition to a ridgetop on the Colusa/Lake
county line at 5700' elevation, and ran two callsigns between
three stations.
K6C, Colusa, M/M
Station 1: Yaesu FT-1000MP, Heathkit SB-200
Station 2: Kenwood TS-850, no amplifier
WX0B SixPak, networked Writelog
K6L, Lake, M/S
Station 3: Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV, Ameritron AL-811H
Shared antennas and towers
50' tower trailer:
Force12 EF-415 15m monobander, 40m Inv-V
72' tower trailer:
Force12 C3S tribander, 75m and 80m Inv-Vs
42' Force12 LPT-1242 tower:
Hex-Beam tribander
Totals
K6C: 1,781 QSOs x 58 mults: 241,396 points
K6L: 1,239 QSOs x 57 mults: 169,689 points
Combined: 3,020 QSOs
Soapbox:
Are we the only ones insane enough to organize a county
expedition like this? We don't care, as we had such a
great time!
Our plan was to arrive at the site in the mid-afternoon on
Thursday, install as much as we could in the daylight,
and have the entire day on Friday to finish with time to
spare on Friday night for relaxation. Any guesses as to
whether this happened?
We planned to pick up a tower trailer in the Santa Cruz
mountains on Wednesday night, and be ready to head
out Thursday morning to the W1SRD/K0BEE QTH where
we could caravan to the Colusa/Lake ridge. When Kent
and I went to go pick up the tower trailer on Wednesday,
we reached a CHP officer and a closed road. A couple of
trees blew over on some power and phone lines.
We also smelled smoke. There was no ETA as to when
the road would be re-opened. So much for an early
start on Thursday morning.
Once we got rolling on Thursday, it took us a lot longer
to head up to the site since we were towing tower trailers
as compared to my visit about a month ago. You can't
exactly fly down the freeway at 80mph and zip around
10 miles of dirt roads with a trailer hitched!
We reached the site in the dark on Thursday, and were
greeted with howling wind. It was a challenge to even
install our sleeping tent for the night, and we wondered
if we'd even be able to put up any towers or antennas
for the weekend. On Friday morning, Don found a location
down the road, but still on the county line, which sheltered
us from being blown off the ridge top! It saved our weekend.
Still, the wind was a factor all weekend, as one of our
towers blew over at the start of the contest. Miraculously,
there was only minor damage to the beam and no one got
hurt. We were able to put the beam and tower back in the
air, where it stayed for the rest of the weekend.
We worked extremely hard on Friday, and got most
everything set up. All we needed to do was to wake up
about two hours before CQP, finish setup, have a nice
breakfast, and we'd be all ready for the contest. Any
guesses as to whether this happened? :) I woke up
at 8:45am (15 minutes before CQP started), and then
woke up everyone else. We deserved the sleep,
though! So, we started the contest about 30 minutes late,
and also slept between 8Z-15Z.
The contest was a real blast! There was terrific activity
from American and Canadian stations! We had some tremendous
runs on 10-20m. We wanted to give both Colusa and Lake
counties to as many people as possible, so that's why we
put the amplifiers on both stations and left the second Colusa
station running 100W. That station was available in case
a third op wanted to jump in. Steve's Coleman 5kW generator
performed flawlessly all weekend.
We worked 51 DX stations using K6C. 29 of those were
Europeans on 15m. We pointed the 15m beam toward EU,
made several QSOs with K6L, and then switched the
antenna to the K6C station in the middle of the opening
so that as many Europeans as possible could get both
Colusa and Lake in the log. HA seemed to be the loudest
European prefix. We also worked some exotic DX with K6C
such as 5Z, 5R, and CU, along with JAs, ZL/VK, XE, and
some South Americans. We somehow missed DE on
the K6L station. Interestingly, we had five DE QSOs on
the K6C station!
QSL K6C QSOs via N6DE.
QSL K6L QSOs via W1SRD.
Many thanks go to:
-Doris K0BEE for the food. We ate like kings the entire time.
Forget MREs. We're talking thick marinated ribeye steaks,
korean beef ribs, asian peanut slaw, tri-tip sandwiches,
and much more...
-Don KF6KGO for joining us and helping with so many
things integral to the expedition. We would have been
in serious trouble without Don.
-Eric KU6J and Ron K6KYJ for telling us about their Colusa site
last year, and giving us so much helpful information about
our site. The location was as stunning as they said it would be,
and even more. Our Colusa/Lake operation simply would not
have happened without their assistance.
-Dave AD6A for lending us his Yaesu FT-1000MP
while my TS-850 is in the shop.
-All the stations that got on the air for CQP and made this
such an enjoyable weekend.
Operating a CQP county expedition has to be about as much
fun as one can have in amateur radio. We are already
talking about where to go next year. Until then.......
73...
-Dean - N6DE
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