7th Area QSO Party
Call: N7GP
Operator(s): N2IC, N5IA, KE7DVB, W7MCO, N7XEU
Station: N7GP
Class: Cnty Exped LP
QTH: AZ GHM/GLE
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160: 0 0
80: 80 26
40: 280 56
20: 1010 1190
15: 0 3
10: 0 0
6: 0 0
2: 0 0
--------------------
Total: 1370 1278 Mults = 65 Total Score = 437,320
Club: Jack's Peak Amateur Radio Association
Comments:
LONG. Not for the faint of heart.
The first comment is relative to the scoring. N1MM did not score the multiple
county contacts, it did not score the DX mults, and it has no way to score for
us operating on a county line (two counties = all contacts x 2). Consequently
the posted score is subject to the official scorer scrutinizing the Cabrillo
log. We believe it is close, and may be a bit low.
The 1st 7QP announcement came after my wife and I already had a planned family
trip to the east coast. From the reports I have read, I missed a good one.
I live only 3 miles from the AZ state line and Greenlee County. I have been
intimately associated with Greenlee County for more than 60 years. I have a
keen interest in making a showing from Greenlee County and have done that at
times in the 160 Meter contests and ARRL Field Day.
For this year's 7QP I had in mind doing a single op, portable FD style
operation from Greenlee until Steve, N2IC, contacted me a couple of weeks ago
about doing a mobile/portable operation from Cochise, Graham and Greenlee
(setup three times in 3 counties).
That got me to thinking and I suggested we do a multi-op in the County
Expedition category. The enticement of X2 for all contacts was like "Wow!
Where do I sign up?". I knew where we could easily access a location on the
Graham/Greenlee county line that was not too far away from Duncan, AZ where I
work. Steve agreed and the plan was put into action.
Some other ops were invited and the local area club (Eastern AZ Amateur Radio
Society = EAARS) agreed to support the activity with some of their FD antennas
and their communcations bus and generator.
Richard, N7XEU and I spent Friday getting all the equipment and antennas set up
at the site. The location is on a ridgeline that is a watershed division
between the Gila River basin and the San Simon River basin. What we discovered
is a potential wind farm generating site. It is windy in the SW USA in the
springtime but 30-40 mph winds do NOT make 2-man antenna erection party a
picnic. But, 12 hours of hard work made it happen.
W7MCO and N2IC arrived in the late afternoon Friday to assist with final
antenna deployment and to setup the radios and logging computers. This was our
first try at using N1MM in this environment and in particular in this contest.
An evening of tinkering with things and all was playing well. We shut down the
generator at 10 PM and went to bed. The wind blew all night long and the travel
trailer was like a boat on the ocean.
The 7QP started at 30 minutes past sunrise at our location so we decided to
forego any low band try and get directly to the upper bands. 20 Meters was
open to the east coast and EU, so that is where the radios stayed for ~12
hours. As you can see from the Q count listing, it was the MONEY band. The
antennas were a pair of C-3's for SSB and a 4-element Moseley for the CW
station.
15 Meters showed no sign of opening. I made a contact with Dave, K1TTT, on 15
Meters, and it was marginal. Dave said he was working 10 Meters up and down
the east coast but there was none of that east to west on either 15 or 10.
As some else mentioned in their post, there is no incentive to move bands if
you have the mults. By late afternoon, we had all states but AK, more than
enough DX for the 10 mults, and really had no more chance for the eastern VE
Provinces. Consequently we rode 20 Meters until it died. That was where the
rate was at.
Steve moved the CW station to 40 Meters when the 20 Meter rate dropped and
found 40 Meters to be great. His 2nd CQ was answered by a DL. Our 40 Meter
antennas were double extended Zepps with the apexes ~50' AGL and broadside to
the northeast. The Q count for 40 Meters CW indicates the success Steve had on
that band/mode.
The rate on 20 Meters SSB hung in there longer for me so I didn't move the SSB
station to 40 Meters until 0200Z or so. I found 40 SSB to be very limited in
number of stations. I worked all the "big guns" by S&P very quickly, and then
found CQing to be fruitless. The 20+ QRN from the midwest storms really put a
damper on the last 4 hours.
We were visited late by WB7ONJ/m who had worked his way through Gila, Graham
and Greenlee counties on US Highway 70.
We were running low on fuel in the generator and didn't know which would give
out first; the fuel, the Q's or ourselves. The generator did run 'til closing
time and we made about 30 Q's the last hour. Many northwest 7 land stations
that we were hearing reasonably well on 80 Meters did not respond to our calls.
The 80 Meter antennas were also double extended Zepps, broadside to the east.
We went to bed shortly after the ending bell, and slept ~5 hours til sunrise.
Steve, Richard and I had all the antennas down, equipment stowed and the whole
enchilada towed back into Duncan, AZ (XEU's QTH) by shortly after Noon on
Sunday.
Was it worth it? An emphatic YES!!!! We learned a whole bunch about what to
do the next time. The only downer was the consistent high winds. The wind
continued all day Saturday (higher velocity that Friday) and was still at 15-20
mph when we finished at midnight. But that beats the 100+ degree heat which is
always prevalent for FD deployments in June.
Did we have FUN!!!! Another YES! For a quickly planned "expedition" to an
unknown site, and operation in an unknown contest format, we can say without a
doubt that it was a success.
Thanks to the organizers of the 7QP, all the state Captains and Co-Captains,
and in particular to all the stations out there in radio land who enjoy
contesting or just get on to give us crazies a contact. Thanks to all the
stations who were participating in the NEQP, the InQP, and the MARAC who gave
us a call. Obviously for us each multiple contact from those stations was a
dupe for us, but that is part of the game. We had 66 dupes overall out of a
raw single contact count of 1,401. That is 4.7 percent.
For those interested, N1MM played flawlessly on Dell desktops running Windows
XP. Networking was with with a Netgear 802.11b router. A 15 mile 2.4 gHz
wireless Internet connection was made to my home in New Mexico.
CW keying was with WinKey and the SSB station was manual voice. I gotta get a
voice keyer that will work with Windows. The transceivers used were
competition grade Yaesu FT-1000-MP's.
And finally, a BIG thank you to the EAARS club for their support of this
activity and the use of their equipment.
73 to all, and we look forward to the 3rd running of the 7QP.
Milt, N5IA, for all the ops and participants of the N7GP outing
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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