Texas QSO Party
Call: K5YAA
Operator(s): K5YAA N5WR
Station: K5YAA
Class: Multi-Op Mobile HP
QTH: TX - 32 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 28
40: 400
20: 1378
15: 423
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 2229 0 0 Mults = 125 Total Score = 866,125
Club: Oklahoma DX Association
Comments:
1,550 round trip miles from Claremore, OK to and around Central Texas.
How to start? First a special thanks to my operating partner N5WR Erik. We
have alot to report about a great party. How about those band conditions? We
were pleasantly surprised and welcomed the early openings on 20 and 15 both
mornings. Those two bands kept us busy the whole QSO party. 20 meters had
pileups we never really worked down so apologies if you were calling and didn't
work us in a county you needed. Both Erik and I "basked in the sun" so
to speak with our HP mobile. It produced the deep pileups you go for in these
State QSO parties. Heavy downpours were with us in LIMEstone, FREEstone and
McLennan counties. I put the generator cover on Saturday AM in anticipation of
the predicted thunderstorms. Our thanks for the persistence all callers
demonstrated. We were stroking the keyboard as fast as we could. You all made
our weekend for sure.
A listing of some contact totals and band usage in a minute but first a
funny....At least Erik and I found it to be funny. The proprietors probably
didn't. We drove through a number of small towns in Central Texas. Many of
them didn't even have a gas station! BUT - there were two little towns that
did. We luckily found them ( lucky for us not them as you will hear in a
second ) and got a fillup before we ran out. Erik was sweating a bit as one
time the empty light was on for quite a while as we drove along looking for
gas. Having Erik with me meant one of us could keep the rig stroking while the
other one filled up and went inside for a pit stop. At the first little town
Erik was operating and I did the fillup. I went inside to do my thing and when
I came out one of the store attendants was out at the pump next to our van.
Erik said they were concerned about a diesel pump breaker that was clikity
clacking - sounded something like Morse! Turns out we were pumping our 800
watts too close to the diesel pump... At least thats what we decided as we made
get away number 1. At stop number 2 - a little later that morning we continued
our escapades by hammering the keyboard while the other guy filled up and then
went inside. This second time I was the op. The K3 went into full-breakin mode
for some reason and the 811 amps TX/RX relay was doing a full breakin thing. We
both attributed that to the overhead canopy on the station. We figured it would
straighten out after we started moving again. Turns out it didn't and we had to
menu ourselves back to semi-breakin for the poor 811 amp. Erik got out at this
second station and filled up then went inside. While he was looking the drink
box and snack counter over for some refreshment and an energy bar, he overheard
the attendant on the phone saying something like:
"We don't know why the alarm is acting like it is - it just keeps going
off".
Erik - rather quickly - paid for his drink and snack then quickly shuffled out
the front door. He told me we had better get going - the Sheriff might be
showing up. Turns out I was not only hammering the pileup, I was also causing
havoc with their "older" style alarm system. I say older because
later in the day at a newer built station we didn't cause an alarm breakdown or
diesel pump circuit breaker trouble. At least we don't think we did because
there was no "panic" like at the other two gas stations! I will not
say the name of those two little towns because photos of our getaway car, maybe
even photos of us, could be on their post office walls by now. That's our funny
report for the party - at least we found it funny and laughed now and then as
we merrily drove down the roads of Texas.
This year I have been around a good deal of the country in these parties. I
never ran over an animal in any of the states I was in. In the Texas Party
there was finally a casualty caused by the Oklahoma Land Rush Mobile. Seems a
quirky little squirrel (they all seem quirky) in or near LIMEstone County found
his fate. He did, as most squirrels seem to do, dilly dallied around not making
his mind which way he was going to go. Erik was driving and said the squirrel
made a wrong decision. The squirrel took a left instead of a right. The left
turn put him under the front tire of the van that was going about 70 MPH. I was
operating the K3 and never knew - until Erik told me later - that we had
destroyed a poor squirrel in LIMEstone county. Road kill for the buzzards in
Texas. Squirrels are famous for indecision. I saw one running down the center
white line on a farm to market road one time for almost a city block before he
decided to get to the roadside where it was safer. Took him a few herky jerky
moves before he decided which side to go to....
Murphy visited us only once. Friday evening after supper we were double
checking everything for our start on Saturday morning. All of a sudden the K3
started keying up. A bit of inspection showed a frayed wire on the comm port
keying device attached to the laptop that would touch the other wire at times.
I had to search for my soldering iron, carry almost everything including the
kitchen sink in the van somewhere, so knew I would eventually locate it. Did
and found the solder roll too so we were in business to do a bit of surgery.
Erik is an emergency doctor - this was indeed an emergency so he was the one
that did the final surgery. My initial effort at soldering the wire didn't
hang in there. Erik did a magnificent job at repair - I took a picture of the
doc operating. We tested the repair and tied the laptop cables together with a
tiewrap for a secure support of our work. All worked as we tested so off to
bed we went at 9:30 with only a 30 minute or so delay. Next morning all was
well and it stayed that way for the whole run. Murphy was at bay - he didn't
show his face again!
Now on with the rest of our report on the Texas Party. We had a great time
working the pileups. Maybe I already said that. Will probably say it one more
time or two before the report is done. With Erik's unique navigating we
managed to add two counties to our original list. MADIson on Saturday and
COMAche on Sunday morning. Those two brought our total county count to 32.
Looking through the log there were a handful of counties where we never got to
leave 20 meters. We drove through HAMIlton three separate times. We were there
three times due to a wrong turn by myself in Meridian City on Hwy 22. I should
have gone East instead of West. I hate it when that happens. Cost us 30
minutes or so to get turned back the right direction because I was merrily
going on down Hwy 22 for a while before we ran back into HAMIlton. Ooops - how
did we get back in HAMIlton? We should have been in BOSQue. We used the lady to
get us turned back around. That was the first of two navigating problems we
experienced. The second was on Sunday morning when we ended up at the edge of
COMAnche county instead of in the middle of it. The second error wasn't near as
costly as we sat in COMAnche and worked 20 for a while then went back on our
scheduled route to EASTland. Probably a dupe or two in HAMIlton so sorry if we
caused any confusion with that one.
There are many stations to thank for their staying in the chair and following
us around. DX was a big part of our log. A special thanks to the following
ops.
Call - Q Count
--------------
OM2VL - 48 <- great signal as always.
DK2OY - 42 <- he was everywhere we went.
DL6KVA - 30 <- so was Axel it seems.
DL5ME - 22 <- ME wasn't far behind. He dropped in "ME" trying to
break the pile.
LA8OM - 20 <- A great signal from up north. One of our benchmarks for band
condx.
DL8MLD - 19 <- good signals and operating.
OK2EC - 18 <- the strongest OK for us.
UA3AGW - 15 <- warbly at times stout at others but another benchmark.
OE5KE - 15 <- a unique sounding CW signal easy to pick out of the pile.
SP5SA - 15 <- a long haul from Texas.
Many other Europeans and a couple of Qs with HK3Q late Saturday evening.
Regretfully no JA in this one. K9FD/KH6 came along and I was sure we would
hear
JA soon but no joy. Maybe the panhandle mobiles worked one. Total DX
multipliers for us were - 20 and included LA, OM, DL, G, SP, SM, UR, RA,
I, OH, OE, YU, OK, LY, HA, ON, GM, 9A, HK, and KP2. Most are avid county
hunters. Working all 3077 counties from a DX location takes a great deal of
patience and perserverance so thanks for all the work done way into the
European night. 0200Z is in the log for several European stations. That's what
I call radioing...
On the USA side there were many county hunter stations. Thanks for all the FB
Qs. Hope most of you got a new county or two out of the action.
Texas was best for us on 40 so we went down there as often as possible looking
for mults. K5OT was a cinch on every band we worked. Larry, K5OT was sitting
back in air conditioned comfort with some cool refreshment picking off
stations
with K5TR's fine antenna farm. Hope you didn't work too hard OTee. P.S. you
were weak on 15.
It was nice to have Jeff N5TJ call us in several counties on Sunday. He must
have his stealth antennas set up and working pretty well. Glad to hear you
again Jeff. Worked Tom, K5IID at his HILL county location. The wires work
pretty well Tom and nice to know you are alive and still kicking. Several
stations could be counted on when we made our rare 40 meter moves. Those Texas
counties have come in handy as mults. Worked a few mobiles here and there -
but found it more productive to CQ rather than S&P for mobiles. Thanks to
the mobiles that gave us a call, also thanks to the DFW group for a fine
turnout.
The US was at times weaker than DX - especially on Sunday morning. Many avid
US
county hunters were on the air looking to increase their county totals. Too
many to mention but you know who you are. Thanks for all the QSOs. Hope we
provided some needed ones for your first USA-CA or even a second or third time
for many. Thanks to Chuck NO5W for our only LA multiplier. Not only does he do
the Texas QSO Party coordination and drive visitors to the airport but he
operates the radio too! Thanks to W5CW and K5UV for a number of homestate (OK)
QSOs. KO7X was off in Nevada so we didn't think we would work WY. KC7YRA saved
the day for us with that WY mult. To emphasize the openings on 15 meters, one
time when we loaded up down there we had a run of 10 Europeans before we had
one call from stateside. The band was in great shape much of the time both
days. Nice to have more than two bands to choose from. Took a look at 10 meters
only once. N1MM didn't like our HP and went kinda squirrley (definition above)
on us so we didn't stick around to see if the band was open. I never threw the
coax switch to 6 meters - just didn't have an extra second to do that what with
the pileups on 20 and 15 - or did I mention those pileups already? States
missed were VT, the Dakotas (what's new?) and Alaska for a total state count of
46.
Many thanks to the Canadians. VE3KZ, VE3OM, VA3ATT and VE7CV for countless
QSOs. Big signals most of the time from all. VE9AA shows only a few Qs made
in his 3830 report. We were one of the priviledged few that made his log. I
like
that double A callsign. VE9ML made the log a handful of times. Provinces
missed were VE1, VO1, VE5 ( didn't hear VE5KS in this one - bummer ) and VE8.
Not leaving 80 meters out, we gave it a try Saturday evening as we approached
BROWn county. A bit noisy but we were able to work both coasts and made a
total
of 28 Qs in the short time we spent on the band.
That's about the end of this report. Hope you enjoy the reading - we sure did
enjoy the run. My special thanks again to my operating partner Erik N5WR. He
gets to do little radio nowadays so I hope it was a special treat for him.
It was for me. I enjoyed his friendship and FB operating. The K3 has two
earphone jacks so we used the second one for the driver. Got to be part of
the action while motoring along and both of us hollered out a call now and
then.
Finally - Thanks Chuck, NO5W and all the Texas QSO Party workers. It was a
barn
burner this year for you. You should be proud as the turnout apparently was
FB.
73 - Jerry K5YAA and Erik N5WR operators of the Oklahoma Land Rush Mobile a HP
beast that worked flawlessly for us on this run.
Rig: K3, 811H amp and Tarheel antenna on a Starlight Trailer powered by a
Honda
2000 generator. N1MM logging and CW cranking with a W1WEF tool attached to a
Dell laptop.
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