Alabama QSO Party - 2020
Call: W4AN/M
Operator(s): KU8E K4BAI
Station: K4BAI/M
Class: Mobile Multi-OpCW HP
QTH: 13 AL counties
Operating Time (hrs): 7:29
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15:
10:
--------------------
Total: 431 0 CW Mults = 45 Ph Mults = 0 Total Score = 38,790
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
KU8E and I planned to run 17 AL counties in the AQP and return to our homes
about 2 hours before the NA Sprint CW started at 0000Z Sunday. When we set up
the computer, rig, and antenna in my car, the 20M antenna, which had worked
perfectly in the TN QSO Party last Sunday wasn't working. Turned out to be a
bad coax connector, which Jeff fixed. But, we were running late. We had planned
to drive about an hour north of Columbus and start out in Chambers County. So,
we decided to skip Chambers and run our route backwards. We noticed early on
that Jeff's laptop wasn't charging off the car battery like it had done in TN
QP. We suspect a bad inverter. I had brought along a spare laptop, but hadn't
thought to charge up the battery. The computer had not been used for several
months. When we stopped for lunch, Jeff's computer was nearly run down, so we
got out mine. Turned out that it didn't have a lot of battery live and also
wouldn't charge from the car battery system. We stopped at two auto parts stores
to buy a new inverter, but they didn't have one of sufficient amperage. We lost
a lot of time doing that and skipped three south eastern counties. So, we got
13 of our 17 planned counties. When the battery on my laptop ran down, I logged
with pen on paper for the last 150 QSOs or so. After returning home and doing
the NA Sprint (thanks to N2NL and W4ER for our AL mults) and going to Sunday
School and church Sunday, I entered those QSOs into my laptop computer along
with the QSOs we had logged on it. Had to enter the calls and sections and the
go into the Cabrillo file and change the dates and times of all those QSOs. The
date change is easy, but the times have to be done individually and takes time
and patience. We think the final log is accurate except for one call that I
forgot before I wrote it down. Sorry about that one. When I was logging on
paper, I was also sending CW with Jeff's paddle. I know it sounded bad. Do not
blame Jeff. It was all by me, doing the best I could with a bouncing car and a
borrowed paddle. Thanks to Jeff for changing the polarity on his paddle so I
could send more easily. Thanks for all QSOs. 20M was pretty good to most of
the country beyond about 500 miles and to western Europe. We worked 40 state, 3
Canadian areas, plus Germany and the Netherlands. The 10 states we missed were
GA(too close I guess), ME, HI, AK, NV, UT, WY, MT, SD, and ND. The changed date
may have been no worse than conflicting with the CW Open, but the conflicts with
the TX QP and the NA Sprint were significant. Especially the NA Sprint. The CW
bands were covering the mobiles and weaker CW signals from AL for the last four
hours of the contest. And, it wasn't realistic to move much up the band on 40M
because the SKCC group was having their Weekend Sprintathon. We look forward to
fuller participation in future years. 73, John, K4BAI. (P.S. I left out one
important visit from Murphy. I was driving on Interstate 85 between Opelika and
Montgomery and came upon the remains of a blown truck tire in the road. Didn't
see it in time to swerve around it, so I put one pair of wheels on each side of
the remains of the tire, but it was up so high that it felt like a collision
with my Toyota Avalon. It didn't disable the car, but Jeff inspected it and
said that my Protective Screen under the car is broken and there is significant
damage to the inside of the bumper. I hope insurance will help pay for the
repairs. Don't know how much of a deductible I have on that car. Probably not
too high.
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