Texas QSO Party
Call: N5RZ
Operator(s): N5RZ
Station: N5RZ/M
Class: SO CW Mobile LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 684
20: 501
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 1185 0 0 Mults = 94 Total Score = 392,670
Club: Midland Amateur Radio Club
Comments:
Another Texas QSO Party in the books. First time mobile since 2010. Had 30
counties on the plan but only made 29. Ran out of time Saturday night to
activate Kendall.
Condx were good at times and real poor at times.
40M was generally pretty good. I was able to stake out 7026.7 most of the
contest. However, skip was usually too long to work many Texas mobiles.
Worked W5CT 9 times, N5NA twice, WA5RR three times, and K5GQ once. Never heard
Norm, W3DYA or others.
20M was another matter! Never seemed to be able to establish a good clear
frequency. Would go up to 20M at times, work DL3DXX, DL8USA and a couple of
others, then nada. Figured if I was on another TX station frequency, I'd at
least hear the guys calling them, but that only happened a couple of times.
Lots of QSB on 20M also. Very frustrating. Lots of unanswered CQ's.
Went thru a lot of rain on Saturday, but noise wasn't a problem except
occasional power line noise. Also hit some rather rough roads. Since I was
logging on paper and sending by hand (except for the limited CW memories in the
IC-7000), it made for some wild transmissions and holding onto to everything!
Was running two Hamsticks on each rail of the pickup, one for 40M and one for
20M. Around 2000Z, the 40M antenna became intermittent on receive causing a
real pain. Became unusable in Karnes County about 2107Z, and went out to find a
loose coax elbow Tried to tighten it, but it stripped out and had no spare.
Ended up swapping the 40M antenna to the 20M mount for the remainder of Saturday
and no more 20M that day. Had a lot of ground to cover and didn't want to have
to stop and swap antennas. Apologize for that. As it turns out, due to a
couple of wrong turns, was only able to get 10 minutes in Bandera county on a by
then poor 40M before 0200Z the first day. Didn't make Kendall. Still another
2 hours to get back home for some shuteye.
Got up the next morning and repaired the 40M mount and also grabbed a spare 40M
Hamstick - no problems on Sunday.
Scheduled to put out eight counties on Sunday - some large West Texas counties
with few roads. Ended up spending 1:08 in SUTT, and 1:18 in EDWA, which had
one narrow winding road on which we could only average 40 mph if that. Sure got
slow! Turned on a road to go the UVAL, and the road was closed! Went
around the sign and 20 miles later found out why - there was a low water
crossing at the Nueces River which luckily was passable - but because of the
heavy rains earlier in the week, probably would not have been a day or so
before. Lucked out. As it turns out, we hit the eighth county, KERR with 10
minutes to go. Was too busy on 20M to make it to 40M to work the close in
guys. Sorry to my 40M buddies.
All in all a good time. My XYL, Deborah, K5RZA was a trooper and drove almost
1K miles over the weekend! Thanks Darling!
Worked 45 counties. Missed ND SD NH RI AK and WY for 43 states. In Canada,
only worked VE2 VE3 VE7 (last QSO was VE7JH- thanks!). Only DX was DL3DXX 18Q
DL8USA 10Q DK2OY 4Q HI8A 2Q and ON4AAC 1Q.
Top stations:
N6MU = 27 K2DSW = 27 WB9CIF = 26 WA6KHK = 24 and K0AP = 22
Score includes 29,000 bonus for activating 29 counties, and 500 for working
W5CT/M in 8 counties.
Thanks to all for the QSO's, your patience, and sorry to those of you I could
not dig out. Also, congrats to Alan, N5NA for a fine SO effort!
Rig: IC-7000 Paper log 40M and 20M Hamsticks.
Power plant: Honda EU2000i generator
Used Microsoft Streets and Trips with USB GPS for planning and navigation.
Transportation: 2014 Ram Pickup.
Spent all day Monday keypunching log into N1MM+.
Thanks again & CU next year.
--73, Gator and Deborah
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