Texas QSO Party
Call: N5DO
Operator(s): N5DO
Station: N5DO
Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 344 70
20: 771 9
15: 101 1
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 1216 80 0 Mults = 116 Total Score = 467,728
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Thanks again to K5FD for driving. We be used my Honda Pilot this year instead
of K5FD's truck. I've offered to let him operate, but he has no desire to do
so. (Some people are just strange!)
I used a different screwdriver antenna -- a High Sierra instead of the Alpine
one I've used the past several years. I think it worked just as well, or
better. We were going to use the Honda last year, but had terrible noise on
all frequencies. The noise came as soon as the key was in the ignition. I
spent a lot of time trying to find the source of the noise, to no avail. K5FD
brought a Field Strength meter over a few months ago and we found it right away
-- the XM Radio receiver which transmits an FM signal so you can listen to XM
Radio on the car FM receiver. James said "certainly we turned that off
last year, didn't we?" But no, we just turned off the FM radio in the car
not the add on XM radio. So dumb, and such a waste of time, when the answer was
so simple!
We followed the same route again this year as last year. Usually my head is
buried in the computer and radio so I don't see much of the scenery, but this
year I couldn't help but notice the major difference between last year and this
year was the huge increase in the number of oil company vehicles on the roads
throughout the oil patch counties. Loving County is the smallest county in
Texas, and has the lowest population, but has the highest per capita income of
any county in the state. Last year when we drove through it we saw very little
traffic. This year it felt like we in the middle of the rear echelon of an army
division in a war -- there were trucks everywhere! And this was a Saturday -- I
guess it would be the same on Sunday.
The next county, Winkler (home of Wink, where Roy Orbison was from), was not
much different. At the intersection of two small roads (SH 302 and FM 1292)
there was a traffic jam of oil service trucks!
On the ham bands, I made more QSOs this year (1296 vs. 1073), but the mults
were down (116 vs. 138). This was because I made a lot more 40M SSB QSOs last
year with a lot more QSOs with Texas stations and more Texas counties. So the
overall score was only about 24,000 more than last year.
Despite the fatigue when I finally got home, it was another fun Texas QSO
Party!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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