[3830] TxQP NO5W SO Mobile LP
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Fri Oct 3 07:12:21 EDT 2003
Texas QSO Party
Call: NO5W
Operator(s): NO5W
Station: NO5W
Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: Texas
Operating Time (hrs): 14.4
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 994 0 0
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 994 0 0 Mults = 45 Total Score = 166,190
Club:
Comments:
Score includes 32,000 bonus points for covering 32 counties with 5 or more Qs.
Let's see now, the post TQP checklist
1. Attend post TQP NARS gathering -- Great post-TQP party and lots of tales and
chatter about the fun and great activity levels experienced during the 2003 TQP.
Hope some of those tales will show up here on 3830. Lot of talk about a
hydro-planing multi-op station out of San Antonio loaded to the grills with
rigs, ops, and antennae. We'll let those with first hand experience report on
that little encounter but I understand they came out of the spin headed in the
right direction (certainly thankful for that) and after some repair work on the
vehicle went on to rack up an impressive score. "Those Texas mobiles are
amazing".
2. Demo mobile setup/software and answer "What's a TQP?" for some of the fellow
IT workgroup at the office -- That went well and I sense some interest there
especially among the guys with the 4x4s. Plant a few seeds and see if they grow.
The idea of an 18 hour party was appealing to some but I also heard some
expressions of disbelief that a guy could listen to 18 hours worth of Morse code
and static while riding around the Texas countryside and call that a party.
3. Wash the lovebug remains from 860 miles and 32 counties off the Pathfinder.
These critters are not unique to the FQP!
4. Read 3830 reports to see how it went for others -- Um, let's see "Wow what a
party", "Almost as much fun as FQP", "Those Texas mobiles are amazing", "Look
out CQP, FQP, ... the Texans are on the march". NX5M score -- well done! How'd I
manage to work you only once. Looks like the 2003 TQP was a winner. I might add
that it was not only Texans but an ex-Texan, and at least one Californian who
helped serve up the mobile Qs -- thanks Larry (K5OT) and John (N6MU). Too bad
for my score that you guys are so good but sure nice to have you drop by to
help toward the goal of putting on all 254. Hope to see you again next year.
5. Write 3830 report for NO5W/ctyx -- Signing after every Q like every good QP
mobile op should.
Wow what a party! Still returning to earth after 18 hours listening to CW and
QRN, working 32 pileups and, except for the two pages to call the office (not my
idea of SO2R!), nary a thought of work-related issues.
Last year's TQP was my first time to make a mobile QSO and after the first
county I was hooked. One of the goals set after that experience was better route
planning and easier county changes. So this year a good number of hours were
spent planning the trip using Streets and Trips (S&T) from that little software
shop in Redmond. After the route was planned and looked feasible I did some
screen captures of the main highway change points and detour points that would
need to be made in order to capture additional closeby counties along the main
route. Adding these screen captures to the user-configurable help menu in the
logging program allowed a map of the next change point to always be visible in a
small window on the logging program screen. Also a shell-out to S&T for the
current day's route was added to the logging program help menu in case I needed
to actually interact with S&T. This was used from time to time when the pile-up
quieted down to measure distance to the next county line as we passed through a
given town or landmark. This worked extremely well. We followed the
route plan exactly and didn't get lost this year even though we were in counties
we had never travelled before. The only deviation from the plan was the addition
of a couple of extra counties at the end due to the driver having a heavier foot
than the one I had configured in S&T. The route plan was also used to develop a
county list from which all message changes (including W1NN's requisite
NO5W/ctyx) for the next county could be performed with two key strokes virtually
eliminating any lost time for county changes.
Other technologies used this year were a solid state USB drive for backing up
the log after every 5 Qs and a USB to 2 RS232 port expander. To meet the
requirement for two USB ports a small 4 port USB Hub ($3.95 special from Fry's)
was added. One of the RS232 ports was used to pass the messages from the logging
program to an external serial keyer and the other used to communicate with the
radio -- the latter was not really needed since, due to antenna problems, I was
tied to 20M CW the entire party. The RS232 port on the laptop was not used. The
lapdesk contained a laptop running XP, a Palm mini-paddle and the small USB hub
with attached USB drive. A single USB cable carried all keyer and radio control
signals from the small hub on the operating lapdesk to the port expander in the
rear of the vehicle. Operation was from the front passenger seat. With two ports
remaining on the hub maybe a GPS is in store for next year.
Now for some county stats. In the following
Min = Minutes spent in the county
NoQSO = Number of minutes without a QSO
Hourly Rate = 60(QSOs/Min)
%WithQSO = Percentage of minutes with at least one QSO
Cty Day QSOs Min NoQSO HourlyRate %WithQSO
BURN Sat 24 10 3 144 70
BAST Sun 16 7 2 137 71
FREE Sat 20 10 1 120 90
MLEN Sun 20 11 1 109 91
GRIM Sun 29 16 0 109 100
MILL Sat 23 13 0 106 100
AUST Sun 31 18 1 103 94
ELLI Sat 15 9 1 100 89
WASH Sun 35 22 2 95 91
BELL Sat 48 32 7 90 78
WALK Sat 36 25 4 86 84
CORY Sat 26 19 5 82 74
COLO Sun 30 22 6 82 73
BZOS Sun 38 28 6 81 79
MILA Sun 28 24 7 70 71
LAMP Sat 64 55 19 70 65
NAVA Sat 47 41 13 69 68
BOSQ Sat 37 34 9 65 74
FALL Sun 41 38 14 65 63
LEE Sun 31 29 9 64 69
TRIN Sat 21 20 6 63 70
MADI Sat 26 25 13 62 48
BURL Sun 29 28 10 62 64
MGMY Sat 20 20 6 60 70
FAYE Sun 39 39 13 60 67
HARR Sun 11 12 6 55 50
WALL Sun 27 30 14 54 53
HAMI Sat 52 58 26 54 55
HOUS Sat 47 53 23 53 57
HILL Sat 31 39 19 48 51
HEND Sat 12 17 9 42 47
ANDE Sat 40 60 33 40 45
Cumulative 994 864 288 69 67
Average Minutes Per County 27
Total Operating Time 14.4 hrs
It's pretty obvious from all of the non-productive minutes above and the overall
decent rates that the activity level was there to support a much better score --
if only I had used more of the time and had been able to move to other
bands/modes, 40M in particular. There's the main goal for next year.
Many thanks to all those who tracked me around the route and put up with my
lid-like sending on the mini-paddle. The combination of the bumpy roads and my
poor adjustment of the paddle tension often resulted in "AGN" coming out as
"AC". I really wasn't QLF but it probably sounded like it at times. Got to make
some adjustments on that thing before next year. A special thanks to the
following stations who worked me in 20 or more counties: K4AMC(29), K5IID(29),
N4JF(29),
W3BBO(28), AB7RW(27), K9CW(25), N4TB(24), K8IR(23), N4PN(22), N0ZA(21),
NF4A(21), VA7LC(21), KG7Q(20), KM4FO(20), KN4Y(20), W0GXQ/M(20). Most of you
were 20 over on practically every QSO.
At times I felt alligator-like with all the strong signals I was working and
some comments that I was 20 over. The S7-9 QRN level made it difficult to work
some of the weaker stations and I am sure that I missed some. My apologies
if you called the alligator and got no response -- I do recall working VA3DF in
at least two counties who I see was running 4 watts into a dipole so I wasn't a
complete gator. Improving the noise situation is another goal for next year.
6. Return to Earth -- Nothing to report here, not yet accomplished.
Thanks to all who participated both inside and outside Texas to contribute to
the fun. See you next time and at many CW events in between.
A very special thanks to my YL, Keri, for some really excellent driving over all
those miles -- all on the weekend before your birthday! And thanks for cheering
me on toward the 1000 Q mark -- next year we'll make it.
Cresting the hills in the high hill country of BOSQ, HAMI, MILL Saturday
afternoon, feeling loud and with the pileups raging, and the Sun setting in the
west you could see forever over some really nice Texas countyside. Thoughts were
-- it just doesn't get any better than this. And I guess that just about sums up
the 2003 TQP.
73,
Chuck, NO5W
Equipment:
2002 Pathfinder
ICOM 706MKIIG running at RFLevel 5
20M Hamstick on Quad Magmount
ClearSpeech Speaker
ByteRunner USB to 2 RS232 Splitter
USB Hub - $3.95 at Fry's
Palm Mini-Paddle
Hamation external serial keyer
CQx de NO5W homebrew Windows-Based Logging Program
Dell Latitude Laptop running Win XP
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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