Louisiana QSO Party
Call: NO5W
Operator(s): KU5B
Station: NO5W
Class: Rover LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160:
80: 40 0 20 0
40: 394 0 30 0
20: 182 0 30 0
15: 1 0 1 0
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------------------
Total: 617 0 81 0 Total Score = 200,908
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Radio: IC-7000 at 75W
Antenna: HI-Q 4/80 with MFJ-1924 controller
USB Interface: Navigator by US Interface
GPS: Garmin GPS18PC
Software: CQ/X de NO5W 1.7
Vehicle: 2002 Pathfinder
When KU5B remarked at a NARS club meeting on how much he enjoyed chasing
mobiles around Texas from NX5M in the 2007 Texas QSO Party, my comment was that
he should try it from the mobile side. He agreed that the prospect of being a
rover sounded like a whole lot of fun. So we started making plans to do just
that in the next QSO party that was reasonably accessible from the Houston
area. After ruling out MN QP (too cold!), that "whole lot of fun" turned out to
be a one-day 750 mile trip, leaving Houston at 6:00 am and returning around
11:00 pm, to activate 20 Louisiana parishes while making 600-plus QSOs.
Considering that getting to Louisiana from Houston and return is about 300
miles we covered about 450 miles in Louisiana.
Regardless of the plans you make, these mobile excursions always come with a
few surprises, sub-standard roads and roads that end before you get to that
next county, etc. For example, the distance into Evangeline from Hwy 190 near
Basile appeared to be less than a mile but when we traveled that mile we found
ourselves looking across a penitentiary fence at the desired Evangeline parish
on the other side. Of course, that was a side we didn't want to be on so we had
to find a route around the big house and eventually did.
As a more pleasant surprise we encountered a parish that we had not planned on
activating and in fact had thought that it was on the opposite side of the
Mississippi River from our route. KF2O had requested Concordia so just before
leaving Pointe Coupee parish we took a little detour into Concordia on the west
bank of the Mississippi near the river control structure at Morganza. On the
way however, we found a slim quarter mile sliver of West Feliciana that had
somehow been cut off from the West Feliciana mother ship which is on the east
bank. So parking in that slim sliver we were able to give out QSOs from a
parish not in the original plan -- a little something extra which, in
Louisiana, they call lagniappe. Then toward the end of the day we were
surprised to find ourselves further along the route than expected. This led to
the addition of Caddo to the route and it looked like we would be able to add
Bossier but when we traveled down the road that appeared to take us to Bossier
we found it ending at the Red River with Bossier on the other side.
While Louisiana is not one of the biggies in the QSO party world and mobiles
are pretty scarce (thanks W3DYA for also making the trip) the initial ten
minute hourly rates in most of the counties was enough to make it fun:
Winn(150), DeSoto(132), St.Landry(126), Rapides(120), Evangeline(120),
Caddo(120),
Vernon(120), Red River(120), Grant(114), Pointe Coupee(108), Sabine(102),
Natchitoches(102), Jefferson Davis(102), Concordia(90), Beauregard(90),
Acadia(90), Avoyelles(78), Allen(78), Calcasieu(30), West Feliciana(24).
Thanks to the following stations for tracking us throughout most of the day,
contributing more than half the QSOs and making the trip worthwhile: N4RS(29),
NU0Q(22), W0QE(21), KF2O(20), W9MSE(19), KB6TAL(18), K4EXT(17), N9QS(17),
W0GXQ(17), K8QWY(16), K5UV(15), K4AMC(15), W5ESE(14), NW6S(13), WB2ABD(13),
K4YFH(13), K9NW(13), W4RQ(12), W4IHI(11).
The following 20 parishes were activated with the indicated number of QSOs in
each: St.Landry(49), Pointe Coupee(48), Red River(45), Sabine(40), Vernon(37),
Grant(37), DeSoto(36), Avoyelles(36), Natchitoches(33), Winn(33), Rapides(31),
Acadia(31), West Feliciana(27), Allen(25), Caddo(23), Calcasieu(23),
Evangeline(23), Concordia(21), Jefferson Davis(17), Beauregard(15).
We met our goal of working 80-15 meters but 15 was pretty slim with only 1Q --
is it still dead or just no one there? We had planned to also do SSB if RTTY
QRM got to be too bad but fortunately, although there were a few frequency
contentions, the RTTY contest did not pose a real problem. That was fortunate
since we had some problem with our SSB setup.
Colin did a great job of operating, learning the IC-7000, antenna controller
and the CQ/X software in a matter of a few parishes and was having so much fun
I decided to stick to the driving. He has set the bar pretty high for this main
op at NO5W. We'll see if I'm up to the challenge when I get back in the
operating chair for the MS QSO Party, February 23. Hope to work you there -- I
need the Qs! On down the road we're discussing doing another team effort in the
OK QP in March so listen for us there.
73/Chuck/NO5W
73/Colin/KU5B
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