[3830] W6KC CQP M/M HP County Expedition

[Jim at VistaSierra.com]

                                    California QSO Party -- 1997

      Call: W6KC (+W6SW)
      County: Mono
      Category: M/M, High Power, County Expedition

      MODE      QSO    QSO PTS  MULTS

      CW       830     2490        0
      SSB      922     1844        0
      -----------------------------------------
      Totals  1752     4334       58  =   251,372

       Band Breakdown
           CW      SSB
     160     0        0
      80   123     116
      40   210     113
      20   363     534
      15   134     158
      10      0          1
     VHF   0         0
     ALL  830    922

Equipment Description:
Station 1: TS-930, Swan 1KW Amp
Station 2: TS-450SAT Barefoot

Antennas:
80 Meters: 80m Dipole @ 60'
40 Meters: 40m Dipole @ 70', 40m Horizontal Delta Loop @ 30'
20 Meters:  3 Element Wire Beam @ 55'
15 Meters: Same 40m Dipole @ 70'

Comments:
This was the 6th year that W6SW (Randy) and I have operated from Mammoth
Lakes in Mono County.  It's a really beautiful area located at about
8000' on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  We are now
familiar with all of the pine tree combination needed to hold an every
increasing amount of wire.

Last year our 2-element wire beam quickly became just a 20m dipole when
it came crashing down during installation and broke one of the PVC
support booms.  This year the redesigned model with a 3rd element added
installed and worked like a charm.  We also put up a horizontally
mounted 40m delta loop thinking it would give us better short skip
performance.  Since we always got better comparison reports from the 40m
dipole at all distances our antenna lab experiment didn't have the
desired result.

We ran 2 PC's with CT networked.  It was cool to see the last 10 QSO
count hit 233 at times when we were both running.  The strangest PC
problem we had was when the RF re-programmed my keyboard and all of the
function keys were mixed up.  F2 was now F1 and F1 was now F4 etc. I
couldn't get it to reset so I went out and borrowed a keyboard for the
last 3 hours of the contest.

Highlights:
Working one of my ham buddies from Jr. High School days who I hadn't
talked to in over 30 years.

Seeing W6SW's wire beam at 55' and having it make a big difference in
our 20m results towards an overall competitive score.

Completing our sweep of 58 states/provinces after only 7.5 hours (2328).

Lowlights:
Only one.  Taking down all of the antennas, packing up and not leaving
Mammoth for the 300 mile drive back to Santa Monica until 7:30 p.m. on
Sunday.  Getting to bed about 1 a.m. knowing you have to get up for work
at 6 a.m. the next morning is a true test of dedication to CQP.

73 and Thanks for all the good QSO's,

Jim, W6KC

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