I enjoyed reading both John's and Ted's (W4NZ) GQP summaries.
A few corrections and additional comments to John's story.
We were just using a regular Hustler 40 meter resonator. I bought a new 20
meter resonator to use the DX Engineering top hat for 40 meters but
ran out of time to tune it. I should have it ready for the FQP.
The problem with the IC756Pro was self inflected. When I tried to fix the
PL259 there was a little extra solder on it enough to move the center pin of
the SO239 connectors. When you open up the radio the SO239's go to pads on
the Control unit board via a jumper wire, which broke off on both SO239
connectors. What looked like some type of component was actually just the
wire jumpers to pads on the CTRL Unit board. Should be an easy fix. I need
to make a mental note not to try to force PL259 connectors into a SO239
again !
I think we finally figured out our computer problems. We use an AC inverter
plugged into the cig lighter plug of the car. The computer would run good
when the engine was not idling but seems like the battery in the computer
would never charge. I think connecting the inverter directly to the car
battery might have resolved this problem.
I apologize to John because I think we would have broken 2K QSO's if we did
the full 20 hours. I'm glad we decided to just step back and think things
over before deciding to maybe go home. It was well worth the drive down to
Charlton and Camden counties. The pileup in those two counties was
unbelievable.
73, Jeff KU8E
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