Texas QSO Party
Call: W5CT
Operator(s): W5MJ K5PI KG5U WK5S
Station: W5CT
Class: Multi-Op Mobile LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 17
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 754 98
20: 923 212
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 1677 310 0 Mults = 110 Total Score = 656,610
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Last year, W5MJ and I felt like we really got our TQP mobile installation
working well. Best score ever and almost zero technical problems. So do did
we leave well enough alone? Nope! We had two other fellas who wanted to get
in on the game, so why not! Steve WK5S volunteered as driver and Dale KG5U
said he’d like to operate, so we decided to give it a whirl. We added a
battery and two additional TS-480 rigs and all associated cabling (whew!). I
started working to learn the multi-op functions of the CQ/X software. The plan
was basically to have one station each on 15, 20, and 40. We’d use a Hamstick
for 15, Hustler for 20, and Tarheel for 40, all mounted at the rear of the
vehicle.
We did a couple dry runs and found very little RFI to computers and other
devices, and a low-to-moderate amount of interference from 40 to 20. Ready to
roll!
We adjusted our route a bit, starting at Brownwood but heading west toward
Lubbock to pick up three unclaimed counties. After that, we picked up our last
year’s route late Saturday afternoon and ended up near Denton. We moved our
Sunday start point this year, but generally followed the same route as in
previous years. We’ve struggled to stay on schedule every year so this year,
we shortened it by about 15%. That seemed to do the trick �" Steve kept
us right on schedule all weekend.
We got to our start point Saturday morning early, and the “fun” began. We
did a quick retune of the 15 and 20M antennas, but got them right where we
wanted. We plugged in an audio splitter so Steve could listen in and POOF! our
15M radio blinked off. We reset it, but it wouldn’t transmit. We did a
NASCAR-pit-crew radio swap, but in the rush to get everything going, the
splitter was plugged in again and POOF! our spare radio blinked off. Okay,
so we’re down to two radios. Now to get all the computers running. That
took a little while and before we knew it, 45 minutes of the contest had ticked
away and we hadn’t made any contacts. Finally, we blasted off but got off to
a very slow start. Hmmm �" no calls on 20 CW. Solar flare? Let’s try
20 SSB �" okay now we’re cooking. Then someone found us and said
they’d tried calling us on 20 CW to no avail. Egad! The IF Shift knob was
all the way to the left. Aha! Now we’re cooking on 20CW.
We continued through Saturday with only a couple more challenges. Our 20M
feedline got pinched and had to be swapped out. And one computer crashed and
on restart, couldn’t load the log. So we started a new log and were back in
business. Conditions seemed awfully noisy, but we attributed it to a
thunderhead that followed us for a good while. Rate was good, but not great.
Sunday started off great with a nice county line run. We stayed a bit longer
than planned and skipped our planned detour to pick up Hopkins County. By the
afternoon, however, we had made up the time and decided to take a quick jaunt
out to activate Limestone. We had a second feedline failure, but that was
quickly remedied. Again, noise was a problem all day, and it may be that we
had a noisy device inside the vehicle (laptop power supply?). We received
several reports that we weren’t hearing well �" sorry if we missed your
call.
Thanks to all those who followed us, worked us on both modes, and kept calling
through our noise. And thanks to KV5V, K6RV, N5TW, K5LN, and W5RQ for help
with engineering, equipment, and testing. See you next year!
Robert K5PI
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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