[3830] CQP Expedition to Glenn County--N6NT (Long)

[Bruce Sawyer]

Category:  Single Op, High Power (sort of), All Band, County Expedition
(Glenn County)

Location:  On the north slope of Black Butte, in western Glenn County,
at about 7000'.  As best I could determine, this is about the highest
point between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierras, at least in northern
California.  The views were absolutely stunning.  I was looking out over
a couple of lower ridgelines in front of me to the Central Valley of
California, then over the valley all the way to the Sierras.  I had line
of sight to a lot of the Sierra county stations as well as back to the
ocean.  This is in the Mendicino National Forest and (before anybody
asks) I did indeed have permission from the Stonyford Ranger District to
camp there AND to operate my little Coleman stove.

Results:
            CW        SSB
160         16         25
 80        104        102
 40        162         59
 20        328        310
 15        211        224
 10          2         13
Totals:    823   +     733   =  1556 x 57 = 224,295

The story:

I left Saratoga at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday and got to the Stonyford Ranger
Station in beautiful Willows, CA, by 7:55 a.m.  They told me the office
didn't open until 8, but the very nice lady gave me the required
campfire permit anyway.  About 90 minutes later I finally reached Black
Butte.  The last hour of driving is on unpaved forest service roads, so
you can't go just real fast.  But what a spot it was when I got there! 
The coast range mountains are my favorite part of California.  All the
population pressure is on the Sierras, since they are so much better
known, and the coast range is much wilder and more unregulated as a
result.

Actually, I had two sites picked out for this contest and it wasn't
until I got to Black Butte that I finally decided.  My other site was
right on the Glenn/Mendicino county line and I was seriously thinking
about doing another county line operation from there.  But the thought
of all the fills I knew I would have to give if I did that put me off
from it.  I have done Colusa/Lake, Alpine/Mono, and Trinity/Shasta, so I
know whereof I speak on this issue.  Most people in this contest cannot
copy code, and if you send anything but a 2 or 3 letter county
abbreviation you are going to have to repeat it hundreds of time over
the weekend.  I guess if you stick to SSB this isn't a problem, but I
just hate operating sideband!

I had a Hy-Gain Explorer 14 strapped to the top of my van, a 50'
crank-up Army mast left over from the Viet Nam War days which I bought
at a Visalia convention a few years ago, plus a Ham IV I borrowed from
W6OAT just for this contest.  By the end of the day Thursday I had the
Exp 14 assembled and on the mast, ready to go up in the morning. 
Sticking out the top of the mast was another 20' pole which would serve
to hold the feed point for a 40/80/160 inverted dipole.  The 4 traps on
this were homemade and I had used this thing earlier during ARRL DX from
Panama, but when I went to string it out I discovered numerous wire
breaks from metal fatigue at the solder points.  This design works well
as long as you put it up and leave it up, but I think I need to come up
with better mechanical techniques for my portable wire antennas.  I
wasted the whole afternoon Thursday repairing one after another bad
connection on the traps.  By nightfall, though, the whole thing was
ready to go up.

Friday morning I got the mast up in the air and strung out the wires. 
My instruction manual says never to try to put this mast up with less
than a full squad, yet this is about the 6th time I've managed to do it
on my own.  Once, 3 years ago, I did it in a 25+ knot wind on the
Alpine/Mono county line.  I think that says something about what a
perfect item this mast is for Field Day/expedition-type outings.  The
price has gone up in recent years to $300+, but I think they're still a
steal even at that price.

Friday night I began testing my setup and immediately ran into generator
problems.  Every time I put a load on the generator, then let off, the
generator would sputter a bit.  When I put a load back on it, the line
voltage dropped enough that my Alpha 87A would fault off-line for low
supply voltage.  (What I just described was the process of sending CW.) 
After a lot of fooling around, I eventually realized I had overfilled
the sump with oil, and after draining some oil from the crankcase the
generator seemed to hold steady under intermittent loads.  Nevertheless,
500 watts was about the maximum I could get out of the Alpha before it
went off-line.  I had used this same combination 2 years ago when I went
to the Trinity/Shasta county line and was able to get 800 watts then, so
I dunno what changed in the meantime.  All weekend I kept losing the
amplifier, and I'm positive that my average output was <200 watts.  I
should have gone LP for the contest--I don't think it would have
affected my score.  (Being at 200w the whole time instead of 500 half
time and 100 the other half would probably have been a good trade!) 
Anyway, the stuff did sort of work Friday night.  I was pleased as punch
when the first 40m contact I tried turned out to be FR5DD.  

When the contest started Saturday morning, everything went wrong.  I had
massive RFI problems in the computer and just could not use it for
logging.  After struggling along for 15 minutes or so, I stopped and put
a big ground strap on it.  That helped, but it didn't completely cure
the RFI problems.  Finally I had to disable the computer interface and
just count on being able to band-change CT manually, like in the old
days.  Even the CW keying got a little flaky on 20m when I put the power
up to about 500w.  These are all things we debug on our home stations,
but pop up at the worst possibe moment on an expedition.

The action during the contest felt sluggish to me, but then I hadn't
done CQP in a serious way for 2 years.  Late at night I checked with my
results from 2 years ago and saw that indeed 40, 80, and 160 had not
played as well this time as they did a couple of years ago.  However, 15
meters had more than made up for it and the total was actually ahead of
where I was at the same point 2 years ago.  That was surprising, since
it all felt so slow to me.  After the contest I listened to
K6LL/K6LA/N6IG kibbutzing on 3830, and they had similar comments, so I
know I wasn't alone in this observation.

The pig farmers were certainly out during the contest.  Actually, I
shouldn't call these louts pig farmers, since these guys give pig
farmers a bad name.  One W2 came onto my frequency (SSB, of course)
after I had been there 45 minutes or so and immediately started calling
his buddies.  I tried politely to tell him the frequency was in use and
that I had been there a long time, and in response I got a long lecture
about contesters and contesting in general.  The guy just went into
attack mode immediately.  I'll admit to responding in kind, and for the
next 15 minutes we just yelled at each other.  I think this W2's buddies
even got into the act.  Damnyankees--my Kentucky momma told me about
people like them back when I was just a little kid.  I made a few
contacts during all of this, but it was tortuously slow.  Finally I
decided I'd rather have a score than prove I was right, so I went back
to CW where I should have been all along.  After a while, though, some
guy came along and sent "?" each time I sent a CQ.  He did this half a
dozen times, and then I sent something like "wud u pls send ur call so
we can have qso, else pse qsy".  Then he started with "QLF?" and other
assorted jamming techniques.  I'd like to be able to say that all the
lids were on SSB, but that was clearly not the case.  Late that night,
on 75, I got some clown who started playing country music on my
frequency and trying his best to pick a fight with me.  I don't know
whether I draw more of my share of this kind of garbage or not, but it
sure ruins the fun of contesting.  My feeling at the moment is that we
ought to auction off everything above the bottom 50 KHz of each band to
the commercial interests and then outlaw everything but CW on the
remainder.  

So where was Hawaii?  It sounds like everybody else got it but me.  I
spent hours CQing with my beam pointed west and then spent more time
than was prudent in S&P mode just because I wanted that last
multiplier.  It would have made a difference of over 4K points, but no
way could I find it.  This is the second time in 4 years that I have
missed Hawaii!  The rest all fell into place neatly.  VY1JA was the very
first QSO in my log, and before the contest was over we had a total of 8
QSOs.  I found (actually, they found me) bunches of Nevada, Alaska,
Nebraska, even VE2.  But not Hawaii.  Bummer.

Sunday was a real treat with all the Europeans coming through. 
Actually, it felt like old home week with all the WRTC competitors
checking in!  It was hard keeping a rate up when the temptation to stop
and chat with old friends was so strong.  W6OAT warned me about this
before WRTC, and he was right.  I find it's really hard to stick to
business these days when I bump into guys I know.  So what--I had fun
doing it.  I just got all kinds of Europeans not only on 20 but 15 as
well, and they kept going until late in the afternoon.  It almost felt
like being on the east coast.  I got calls from 5X1T, 7X2LS, and all
kinds of other exotica.  What a trip!  Normally I have to stand in a
long line for these guys.  

When the contest ended, I knew that was when the real action would
start.  I had a lot of gear to tear down and pack.  By nightfall,
though, I had only managed to get the mast down and the wire antennas
put away.  I would have to wait until the next morning to tear apart the
tribander, take the mast down, and pack the gear away.  But when I woke
up the wind was just howling.  I stuck my head out of the tent and it
was blowing sleet and freezing rain.  Wonderful.  Everything was coated
with a layer of 1/4" of ice, and it was just bitter cold.  I couldn't
work more than 20 minutes at a stretch before my hands would freeze up,
so it was slow going getting everything down.  I kept hoping the weather
would clear up, but instead it just got worse.  The sleet turned into
snow and then the snow started covering my stuff up on the ground.  I
got it all back, but there were some frustrating searches in the snow
that morning.  My loyal Labrador Retreiver just huddled in the tent and
shivvered while I took the stuff down.  If you know anything about
Labradors, that should tell you a whole lot about how miserable the
weather was!  By 2:30 I was able to start the drive off the mountain, in
the snow, and it was a heart-stopping drive down the hill.  But by 7
that night I made it back home.  To look at the weather in the bay area
you would never guess what it was like up there in those mountains.

Resolutions:
  1.  I'm never going to operate SSB in this thing again.  I'll either
do all CW or go M/S and let somebody else do the duck talking.  But I've
had it with all the jerks on sideband.  (I don't mean the other
contesters--I'm talking about all the pig farmers.)
  2.  Never go above 5000' for a CQP expedition.  I said that after I
froze my tail off in 1994 but seemed to have forgotten how painful the
lesson was.  Now I remember again why I made that resolution back then.
  3.  Do more RFI checking before the contest.  Bring plenty of toroids.
  4.  Take a dumb amplifier.  Even a SB-200 is preferable to an 87A in
this kind of environment.  I have a 30L-1 on ZF8 I'm hoping to get back
this November, and from now on I'll keep it real close to me.  I sure
wish I'd had that 30L-1 this weekend!.   

73,
N6NT

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