North American QSO Party, CW - August
Call: KN4DEB
Operator(s): KN4DEB
Station: KN4DEB
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: SNP VA
Operating Time (hrs): 3
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80:
40: 72 28
20: 36 17
15:
10:
-------------------
Total: 108 45 Total Score = 4,860
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Team: PVRC Rappahannock 1
Comments:
This was my first attempt at NAQP-CW using my camper and portable KX3 site. I
set up a 102' CFD at the top of Skyline Drive and planned on using battery
power. As I established my site and prepared for the contest, I realized that my
"go-kit" was missing a few essentials. As such, I headed down out of
the mountains to NR4M's Goat Farm to pick up a tuner, antenna analyzer, battery
charger and a spare battery. These items took care of my initial issues where I
was only able to transmit at 5W max. With these tools, I was able to identify
that the issue was with the input voltage and was then able to get to 100W.
My next issue came when I attempted to test the system. I found that I did not
have a WinKeyer in my "go-box" so off to NR4M's I went again to borrow
one. This worked perfectly and I was on the air within minutes once I returned
to the campground.
With all the travel and such, I didn't make my first contact until 1854 EST and
my first battery died out at about 1930 EST. I then changed over to the NR4M
backup battery and continued on the air.
Unfortunately, at about 2130 EST my laptop battery notified me that it had about
20 minutes left. Of course, I planned on this and had a fully charged inverter
ready to go when this time came along. But, as my luck had it, the inverter was
not charging my laptop so my last contact was at 2155 EST.
I must say that I learned quite a bit during this event. My top priority is now
purchasing everything missing from my "go-kit" so I know I'll have it
in there the next time. I also learned that no matter how much planning goes
into power supplies, something will always go wrong. You may ask why I didn't
use a Generator? Well, the campground imposes "generator hours" so I
was able to get everything charged beforehand but couldn't run it during the
event itself.
Anyway, other than spending 8 hours driving to prepare for what turned out to be
3 hours on the air, I truly enjoyed my learning experience and having NR4M there
to help me out when necessary.
Thanks for all the QSOs and I'll likely see you this weekend on the air...
73 de KN4DEB ..
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