[3830] CaQP K6L Cnty Exped HP

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                    California QSO Party

Call: K6L
Operator(s): K6ENT, W1SRD, WJ6O, KF6KGO, N6DE
Station: K6L

Class: Cnty Exped HP
QTH: Lake
Operating Time (hrs): 22:30

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:            
   80:   93    104
   40:  205     13
   20:  269    191
   15:  254    246
   10:   93    168
    6:            
    2:            
--------------------
Total:  917    722  Mults = 58  Total Score = 243,310

Club: West Valley ARA

Comments:

We operated K6L and K6C simultaneously from a beautiful ridge top on the Colusa
and Lake County line again this year at 5700' elevation.  It's about a six hour
drive from the Bay Area, with an hour on a dirt road.

K6L, Lake, M/S
Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV
Heathkit SB-200 (~300-400W)

K6C, Colusa, M/S
Elecraft K2/100
Ameritron AL-811H (~300W w/ 60W drive)

Shared equipment between stations:
72' tower trailer, Force12 C3S at 50', 75m and 80m Inv-Vees at 65'
50' tower trailer, Force12 C3S at 45', 40m Inv-Vee at 35'
WX0B 6x2 SixPak antenna switch
Coleman 5kW generator

Totals:
K6L: 1,639 QSOs x 58 mults: 243,310 points
K6C: 1,382 QSOs x 57 mults: 204,288 points
Combined: 3,021 QSOs, 447,598 points

Dave WJ6O joined our team this year, and proved to be a great addition.  Things
started much better this year, as we arrived at the site on Thursday afternoon
with enough time to unpack, set up our tents, and start assembling antennas
before darkness.  This made for a much less exhausting Friday compared to last
year.  Thursday night brought some howling wind gusts between midnight and 4am. 
I woke up and actually thought it was raining, but it was just the wind madly
flapping our tent.  Also, we were freezing on Saturday night and Sunday morning,
but overall, we had pleasant weather and less wind than last year.

Doris K0BEE did another great job preparing food for our expedition.  We had
three meals a day for the entire trip.  It is hard to decide which entrees I
liked the best: the tri-tips, steaks, or corned beef!  Next year we'll bring a
few bottles of wine from the K6PUD vineyard!

Steve W1SRD's Australian Kelpie dog, Coby, was a constant source of
entertainment.  On Thursday night, Coby protected us from offending creatures
and caught a killer rabbit.... errrrrrr.... I mean, a killer squirrel!  Good
dog.  Coby was strutting her stuff and Steve was a proud papa.  We, however,
were not in the mood for a fresh squirrel appetizer, much to Coby's surprise.  I
woke up the next morning, and noticed that a few paper plates in our operating
tent were on the ground.  I thought Coby might have gone through some tri-tip
scraps overnight, and wondered why she was so desperately thirsty that morning. 
Then Dave started looking for his loaf of bread, and it was suspiciously
missing.  Don KF6KGO later found most of the loaf hidden in the bushes.  Bad
dog. Dave did not agree to the proposed swap of his loaf of bread for Coby's
squirrel.

All five of us own Elecraft rigs (some complete, some still being assembled), so
we were eager to get in some contest operating time with Dave's K2/100, which he
did a great job to finish before CQP.  We all felt the receiver was great, but
encountered some issues.  We got reports that our K2/100 SSB transmit audio
sounded "garbled" or "hollow."  We tried making adjustments to the mic gain and
compression in the K2/100 menu, and wrapped the mic cable around a toroid.  It
seemed to help, but didn't completely solve the problem on all bands. It was
interesting to hear from K6XX, W6ZZZ, and N6ZFO during the CQP net on Friday
that our signal was 15-20dB stronger with the Heil HC4 element than with the
HC5.  On Friday, Dave connected the rig control cable between a laptop running
Writelog and the K2/100, and heard a loud pulsing noise on the bands.  It almost
seemed to be half the rate of the cursor blinking in the log entry window.  If
we unplugged the serial cable, the noise would be barely perceptible.  Luckily,
the noise disappeared during the contest.  We have no idea what initially caused
it.  And lastly, we had an issue with the K2/100 not transmitting any power once
it got into a "high SWR" mode.  It seemed like this happened whenever we tried
to drive the K2/100 with 60+ W and the SWR was greater than 1.5:1 between the
rig and the amp.  Our SWR/power meter was clearly showing SWR well under 2:1
between the amp and our antennas.  This K2/100 TX shutdown probably happened
about 50 times during the contest, requiring us to twist the K2/100 power knob,
releasing it from this locked TX state each time.  It was much worse with my
SB-200 than it was with Steve's AL-811H.  We'd like to hear any advice from Eric
or K2/100 owners who have any ideas about solving the above issues.

CQP was great fun, with terrific activity and band conditions.  We maximized our
fun with two simultaneous stations.  Sometimes one station got a "hot" band and
another got a "not-so-hot" band, and then the roles would be reversed later. 
Therefore, we were not ultra competitive on any one particular station, but we
certainly had more fun, QSOs, and operating time!

Combined statistics:
27 European countries contacted
265 EU QSOs
125 Ontario QSOs
104 Tennessee QSOs
3 ND QSOs with K6L; 0 ND with K6C
2 HI QSOs with K6L; 2 HI with K6C
2 RI QSOs with K6L; 1 RI with K6C
5 DE QSOs with K6L; 4 DE with K6C

I couldn't believe how many Ontario stations were on the air for CQP!  Great job
by the Contest Club Ontario and the Tennessee Contest Group.  Remember how
Delaware was rare last year in CQP?  Not so this year!  It was great to hear
them active.

The most interesting part of the log to look through is when Dave (aka: G3WGN)
was running EU on 15m.  Dave provided that much needed European mojo that we
missed last year!  Kent has been our resident magnet for ON4UN the last few
years.

Was it my imagination, or was there more CW activity this year?  We usually have
a much higher SSB total than CW, but this year it was reversed for us.

Last year with 3 stations, we had 3,020 QSOs.  With 2 stations this year, we had
1 more QSO: 3,021 total!  We could have had a higher total if we really wanted
it.  One station stopped shortly after midnight while Kent hammered away on the
other station until turning off the generator at 2am.  I was awake by 6am
Sunday, but decided to let everyone continue sleeping instead of turning on the
generator.  I figured we needed the extra sleep because we had a long drive back
home later that night.  So, by the time we turned on the generator, had
breakfast, turned on the rigs, tuned the amplifiers, and booted Writelog, it was
7:45am.

I was really happy that Don KF6KGO joined us again this year.  In addition to
his invaluable set up and tear down help, he solved some crucial mechanical
issues with both of our tower trailers, without which, we would have been in big
trouble.  Plus, Don provided an artistic masterpiece for all of us to utilize: a
throne!  I have no idea how we managed without it previously.

Lastly, what is a CQP expedition without drama?  When I finished fully stuffing
my Explorer on Sunday afternoon, ready to leave, Dave and I heard a clicking
noise emitting from the vehicle.  It turns out that the "THEFT" light on the
console was constantly blinking on and off, which is the first time I have ever
heard it do that.  This led to the discovery that my battery was dead.  Both of
these must have been triggered by leaving the doors open all weekend or some
other device which I mistakenly left powered on the vehicle's battery.  So, we
hooked up the jumper cables to Steve's truck and I turned the ignition on my
Explorer.  Nothing but the continued "THEFT" blinking and clicking!  I looked
through my Explorer owner's guide and found the following statement: "If the
THEFT light stays on for an extended period of time or flashes rapidly, have the
system serviced by your dealership or a qualified technician."  Time to panic
and shout a number of profanities.  Finally, someone adjusted the jumper cables
and found that they weren't actually making good contact with Steve's battery! 
After deactivating the annoying theft system which blasted away when I tried to
re-enter the vehicle, I turned the ignition and SUCCESS!  Whew!

There are some incredible CQP scores out there.  It appears both the CA and
non-CA all-time records will be broken this year, in addition to dozens of other
records falling.  Tremendous activity all around!

We had a lot of fun, and hope we provided county sweeps to those who needed Lake
and Colusa.  Thanks for all the QSOs and see you next year!

QSL K6L QSOs via W1SRD.
QSL K6C QSOs via N6DE.

73...
-Dean - N6DE


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