Florida QSO Party
Call: K5YAA/M
Operator(s): N4PN K5YAA
Station: K5YAA
Class: SO Mobile+DriverCW HP
QTH: 38 Counties
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
40: 135 0
20: 1716 0
15: 511 0
10: 1 0
--------------------
Total: 2363 0 CW Mults = 83 Ph Mults = 0 Total Score = 392,258
Club: Oklahoma DX Association
Comments:
Paul, N4PN and I had a pretty good time in this one. I don't think activity was
as high as prior years. The pileups were not as deep as I remember them but a
good time was had nonetheless. Our Saturday morning start in Hamilton County
had us thinking something was amiss with the bands as it took 6 minutes before
we made our first Q. We sat for a while then started motoring along I75. Here
was W4AN tooling along in parallel with us. A few solid Qs on different bands
followed. We were moving a bit faster than John and Jeff and never saw them
the rest of the weekend. In fact, we never saw another mobile the whole weekend
which is a bit of a puzzle because there seemed to be dozens of them on Florida
roads based on the postings. So many in fact, that may have been the reason
for reduced QSOs in this one. Callers were distracted with so many to work. I
had targeted 3,000 Qs and we came no where near that many.
We suffered only a couple of road difficulties. One was all the red lights
across Osceola County. Seems they had them set to turn red upon approach,
everyone of them! It must have taken 6 or 8 hours to get across that county, or
so it seemed. Because of that we failed to make our last two counties on
Saturday evening so we ran them the first thing Sunday morning which, as it
turned out, didn't take away from our Sunday count. We made all on the Sunday
list plus those two early morning ones.
The other road difficulty happened to be a little more exciting. We were
motoring along in Levy County on Hwy 24 to make our way to Chieftan on Hwy 19.
The gas tank meter showed very near the red line where, when hit, the little gas
tank icon comes on and a bell rings. A couple minutes later the icon came on and
the bell chimed. Paul said, we need to get some gas don't we? I asked, how far
is it to Chieftan. He "estimated" 30 miles or so. I said, oh, we
will be OK. This thing runs for 30 miles after the red line is hit. Well, it
seems we were a bit further than 30 miles from Chieftan. Moving along on Hwy
24 we see a wooden sign on the side of the road that said "Food and Gas -
Otter Creek". OK, we are gonna get us some of that gas. A little further
along the road Paul says, "We just ran out of gas I think". I believe
he knew that because when he pushed the peddle nothing was speeding up. We
could see the store that had advertised gas and food. It was on the other side
of the road and was sitting right at a yellow flashing light. I said
"Maybe we can coast and make it". Paul was "muscling" the
van with standard type steering and his timing was perfect, he made a left turn
just after a car in the left lane made it past the yellow light, and we did
coast toward the little store. He said, "I have no brakes!". I
said, "Push hard on the pedal!". As we coasted past the front of the
little store we saw a gas tank that looked like it hadn't pumped gas since oil
was discovered. It was rusted and the handle that is usually on a gas pump was
gone! So, what do we do now? After we came to a stop Paul said, "You do
have some spare gas in the generator gas backup containers don't you?". I
told him yes, we can use that. Well, the spout on the red container didn't
quite fit the van's gas inlet. So, I got out the funnel I use to fill the
generator and stuck it in the van inlet. We poured but only about half the gas
was making it into the van inlet. The rest was getting splashed on the street.
Paul said, let me get a match and burn that off. I said, wait 'til I get done
before you strike a match. Well, needless to say, we had a few laughs about our
gas mishap. Fortunately nothing happened to us or the three ladies sitting in
front of the little store that would cause a 911 episode. That probably was
good because I think those were the only people within miles. If the food in
that little store was like the gas pump well, I'm glad we weren't hungry. I
don't think the ladies really do any business with that store. They seemed to
just be having a Sunday morning get together with their kids and neighbor
friends. We must have gotten enough gas in the tank as we made it to Chieftan
and did a standard type of fill up using a pump with an actual handle on it.
No more episodes after that. We did see a number of Osprey nests on the tall
power poles along the road. Quite a site. The birds were roosting way up on
those poles. I believe Florida has some of the tallest power poles in the
country.
Sunday's run was better than Saturday. The bands were a bit better. No 10
meter QSOs though all weekend except for the one with W4AN when they were 20
feet away from us on I75 Saturday morning. More like a CB Q than a ham radio
Q.
We looked over and saw John, K4BAI concentrating on the road while Jeff was in
the back pounding away moving us from band to band. Jeff's nephew was in the
front seat giving BAI road directions. Such a team. They made almost as many
Qs as we did using low power to our high power.
Like I said, we had a good time. The weather couldn't have been any better and
except for the gas shortage, we didn't suffer from lack of equipment or
enthusiasm. Thanks to all who gave us a call. I got a handful of on the air
reports about our choppy CW but there was nothing we could do on the road about
that. Seems we sounded better on Sunday, maybe because we slowed our CW down a
bit. Regardless of the quality everyone seemed to be copying. Europeans never
asked us for a repeat and callers kept coming back from county to county. In a
couple of weeks I'll be trying out a solid state amp which should modify the CW
dits and dahs.
Now for a few numbers from the log. We worked 29 countries including, 9A, CM,
DL, EA, F, FG, G, HA, HB, HC, HI, HK, I, JA, KP2, KP4, LX, LY, OH, OK, OM, ON,
S5, SM, SP, UA, UA9, UR and YV. DX seems attracted to the FQP more so than
other parties.
There were several stations that worked us many times. SP9JLD, DL6KVA, OH6NIO,
OK2EC, OK1CF, HA8IB, G3XVR, G4BUE, SP6ZDA, HI8A, I4VEQ and DK3BN. Thanks for
all the DX Qs. 15 was open quite late to Europe.
In Canada, we didn't work PEI, VE7, VY1 or VE8 but had many VE3s call us both
days. Seemed when one VE3 called others followed right behind. VE3DZ worked us
44 times and VE3KZ 35. VE1RGB and VE9ML were with us most of the weekend. Big
signals from Canada even on 40 meters. Speaking of 40 - what a bust. Every
time we went down to 40 we had to S&P to see if anybody was there. Usually
there was one lonely FL station calling FQP. A NIL when we called CQ FQP. The
band was in pretty good shape because we heard W1AW/2 in Jersey most of the
times we looked at 40 so there was propagation but no action.
Stateside we worked all states except ND, VT, NV, HI and AK. Never heard the
Pacific on 15 even though we had hopes. Many stations were in there the whole
weekend. Sweep chasers a plenty. That K9PG has something really strange
happening with his key. He sent what sounded like hundreds of dits when he sent
his 5NN. Also, he seemed to laugh a lot. Lots of dits there too. Of course
he's a lid so we just chuckled and went about our business.
Though counties are not mults I counted them. We worked 20 of them. Only 1 on
40 meters the others on 20 and 15. Go figure.
To keep the wind down I will stop here with our report. Thanks much to Dan
K1TO and others who put on this FB party every year. I've said many times it
takes a lot of work and dedication to do a party up right. They get it done in
Florida every year.
My personal thanks to Paul, N4PN for being with me on this run. He remains in
great shape for an OM witnessed by his ability to steer a dead power driven
vehicle with no brakes. Thanks too to his wonderful XYL for putting me up in
their home on Friday and Sunday evening after our return from Florida. She is
a gem and just accepts the fact that Paul has to do some operating in almost
every contest. We should all have such a partner.
Until the next one, this coming weekend in the 7QP, 73, Jerry K5YAA.
Rig: That same Oklahoma Land Rush Mobile running a K3, Tarheel, Hustlers an
811H amp and a Honda generator. Software is N1MM running on a heavily used Dell
Laptop. The fire extinguisher almost had it's first usage on this run and
remains at the ready.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|