Ohio QSO Party
Call: W1NN
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: W1NN
Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 9 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 133 15
40: 249 82
20: 90 81
15: 2 2
10: 2 2
--------------------
Total: 476 182 CW Mults = 69 Ph Mults = 66 Total Score = 157,545
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
This was my ninth mobile operation in the Ohio QSO Party. I continue to be
completely intrigued and fascinated by the challenge of achieving the highest
score that I can while operating a contest from an automobile and doing
everything by myself including the driving. Since around 2004, I have been
doing this in rental cars since my own vehicle has a manual transmission.
In 2010, my 80 meter antenna suddenly decided to stop loading and I lost a
great deal of time and QSOs troubleshooting the cause. I finally got it to
work but it really set me back, both in terms of contacts and in terms of my
planned route. So this year my first priority was to make sure that this did
not happen again. I figured that the problem was probably related to a bad
ground so I redid all of the ground connections on my magnet mounts and coax
cables and gave a lot of thought to how to get a good ground in the vehicle.
In the past I could always obtain a good chassis ground by connecting to one of
the bolts that hold the passenger seat to the frame or at a door hinge, but
removable fasteners are becoming rarer and rarer and those that remain are
painted so getting a good ground has become quite difficult. This year I
decided to connect to the ground side of the battery where I was guaranteed a
good chassis connection. This required a longer ground cable which can create
its own problems, but fortunately this year everything worked perfectly.
One key to doing well as a solo op is to plan a route that requires minimal
driving but that still allows you to change counties often enough to keep your
rate up. It is also important to have alternate plans in case something goes
wrong or in case you want to stay longer in a county when you have found a good
run frequency on SSB. It is never too difficult to run up a respectable mult
total on CW, but itâ??s a different story on phone. So another key to doing
well in a contest like the OQP that adds up phone and CW mults is figuring out
how to get those phone mults in the log. This involves two separate problems:
out-of-state mults and in-state counties, meaning that you need to spend some
considerable time on 20 meter phone and either 40 or 75 phone. Those who have
tried it know how tough it can be for a mobile to establish and hold a run
frequency. This is one place where experience really helps.
This year my plan called for operation in 10 different counties with multiple
entries to a couple of them. Fortunately, I was able to make a couple of good
SSB runs on 20 and 40, so I decided to stay longer in some of my afternoon
counties. This put me about two hours behind my plan, so I had to rearrange my
route on the fly and I had to give up operating from my last planned county.
When I tallied up my score, I thought that I might have set a new personal best
score, but checking my past scores I see that this was not the case. I did
manage a new personal best for multipliers (and possibly a new mobile record)
of 135, but I see that in 2005 I had 738 QSOs and a final score of over 170,000
points, so I am some way from setting a new personal record (and a long way from
topping K8MRâ??s 2009 record of nearly 218,000 points - which he may have
smashed this year anyhow).
In summary, it was a good year with very good conditions, good participation,
good weather and overall a very fun experience. Iâ??ll be thinking about how I
might do a little better next year.
I enjoy working the regulars in this event. They are too numerous to mention
but my sincere thanks to all of you. You make this contest! I would like to
make a special thank you to WB8JUI, with whom I had about 20 QSOs due to the
fact that I ended up nearly on his doorstep in SENE. We moved through the
bands on both modes when I was in nearby SAND and a few minutes later when I
was just down the street from his house in SENE. He sure lives in a beautiful
county.
We all owe very special thanks DL2HBX and OM2VL, both of whom spent the entire
night chasing OH counties and whose last contacts take place around dawn their
time. Thatâ??s real devotion!
I would also like to thank my friend Dan, WA6URY, who fought off jet lag from
just stepping off the plane from Japan to hand out some contacts from CA. Dan
also remotely operated my home station in MEDI using the call W3USA/8. It was
really fun to hear how my own station sounds while out on the Ohio roads.
73 & thanks for the contacts!
Hal W1NN
Medina, Ohio
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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