[3830] K8MR/m - Mich QSO Party

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

     2001 Michigan QSO Party

    Call:   K8MR/m
    Category:  Mobile
    Ops:    K8MR (radios) & W8DRZ (driver)


County         CW        SSB       Time

Bay            15        20        :42
Midland        25        16        :38
Gladwin        23        13        :38
Arenac         23        18        :39
Iosco          30        18        :55
Ogemaw         28        22        :45
Oscoda         37        17        :55
Alcona         33        18        :45
Alpena         21        13        :38
Montmorency    44        24        1:10
Presque Isle   64        7         :50
Cheboygan      47        18        :45
Otsego         37        2         :40
Crawford       43        2         :45
Roscommon      26        0         :22
Clare          32        0         :23
Isabella       31        0         :16

Total          559       208

MI Counties    29        30
State/Prov     32        33


What a contest! And what a close finish to K8CC - we beat them by 5 qsos, had 
an identical multiplier total, but by virtue of a higher CW ratio their 
claimed score wins by 1.02%  Two more multipliers would have been enough to 
beat the perennial mobile champs!  Maybe we need a Florida style recount  :>

We stayed Friday evening at the K8CC B&B. A big thanks to K8CC
for the use of his QTH.  With the rain Saturday morning it was a
major advantage to be able to do final car preparations under a
roof.  We had to fool around an extra 15 minutes getting the hood
to latch properly; I'm not sure just why, but somehow with the
power cable to the battery the latch is not happy.

We left Dave's about 9:15 am, reaching Auburn, between Bay City
and Midland, about 11 am. We found a restaurant about half a mile
off M-10 where we ate while watching the rain pouring down
outside.  But by the time we finished with lunch, the rain
stopped, we gassed up the car, installed the Ham Sticks, and
started the contest while parked in the shopping center lot.


Since we were visiting a number of counties assigned to no one
else, we decided to spend extra time in those operating while
pulled off the road. This often proved quite productive, with 
noise levels much lower than with the car engine running.  We
also made a point to do SSB from these counties, to pass out
these rarer places to the more casual entrants and to enhance our
SSB multiplier total. 

The activity was great.  In my several previous mobile efforts 40
qsos in a county was doing good. This time we averaged 45/county,
highlighted by 71 qsos in 50 minutes from Presque Isle county,
mostly while parked on a long driveway to a high school in
Onaway. We were close to the top of hill, giving a great view of
the setting sun.

While there the wind picked up greatly. The drive from there
through Cheboygan and for about 40 miles down I-75 was a real
challenge. There was lots of dust blowing across the road, much
like a snow storm, except DRZ reported it was blowing sand. I
guess someone mistook us for 9K8MR.  The wind buffeted the
minivan such that it was good approximation of a bumpy airplane
ride. Because of the wind we were only able to do about 60 mph on
I-75 through Cheboygan and Otsego counties.

This was a 40 and 20 meter contest.  I tried 15 meters a number
of times.  Early on, 21045 had some unidentified DX pileup, which
made things tough. What I would think was someone calling me always
turned out to be someone at the edge of the pileup.  Later on
simply no one answered. I totaled 3 cw and 1 ssb qsos for my
efforts on 15. I listened once to 10 with the 15 meter antenna
and heard no signals, so did not bother further with 10.

80 cw at the end worked well.  I remain amazed at how much one
can do there with just an 8 foot HamStick on the roof of a
minivan. With the active contest guys on at this point, I had 89
cw qsos in the last hour, including a 116/hour rate from the last
county, Isabella. 

The great activity made it tough to work other mobiles, since any
other non-mobile station was just about guaranteed to win the
pileup. I had a number of times I couldn't get through and gave
up. I did hear and work all the mobiles except W8RU (I did hear
people working them) and WI8W. The bozo highlight was some DX net
cop on 14250 telling me that I was violating some "3 KHz rule" by
operating "only" 2 KHz from their net frequency. I had just
worked W8CNL who witnessed it all and reassured me that they were
indeed full of crap.

Thanks to all for all the activity. We'll be out doing the same
thing, different state, in the Ohio QSO Party on August 25. See
you then.  



73  -  Jim    K8MR


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