[3830] TxQP K5OT/M SO CW Mobile LP

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                    Texas QSO Party

Call: K5OT/M
Operator(s): K5OT
Station: K5OT/M

Class: SO CW Mobile LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:                   
   40:   266             
   20:  1330             
   15:    72             
   10:                   
    6:                   
    2:                   
  UHF:                   
----------------------------
Total:  1668    0       0  Mults = 111  Total Score = 601,444

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Comments -

LAST YEAR:
It was hard to top last year's experience ... a great multi-op effort with Chris
K5AV as we roamed the Texas panhandle in his van.  With just a single radio and
utilizing CW only, it was hard to compete with the fine multi-operation of
K5CWR, K5NA, and other teams. 

THIS YEAR:
My son Scott has been bugging me for months to let him drive in another mobile
contest, so I gave him the opportunity to help with my single-op entry in this
year's TQP.

Scott came up to vist us in Wisconsin (where we lived at the time) and drove for
me during the 2003 WI QSO Party.  I'm not sure he fully realized that the TQP
was 18 hours over two days, versus the much shorter 7 hour Wisconsin event.  But
this year he did another great job tweaking my initial route plan - and he kept
us on schedule and between the ditches. All I had to do was sit there and
operate.

The mobile setup:
Ford F150 pickup truck (about 14 mpg)
Kenwood TS-850SAT at 100W
IBM Thinkpad running TR-Log
CCB [critical carboard box, for shielding glare on laptop screen]
Hustler 40/20/15M tri-mount antenna on back fender
W9UCW/K8CW 20M antenna on mag mount over cab

We covered an agressive 46 county course (one short of the 47 county total from
the route last year) - but managed 167 more QSO's and 5 more mults.  Last year,
Chris and I had five hours of >100 QSOs per hour .... this year, the activity
jumped to eight hours with rate of >100 QSOs.  The first hour on Sunday was the
best single hour this year at 139 QSOs. What a great way to kick-start Day 2! 


The surge of stations that call when you cross into a new county is an addictive
part of mobile contesting.  The pileups can't happen without the many stations
out there who follow the mobiles around the state.  John N6MU takes our 'clean
sweep' award with a QSO in EVERY county we passed through.  Special thanks go to
some great operators from EU who made the log on 20M and/or 15M: DL3GA, DL5AWI,
DL5MC, LY3BA, PA3ARM, RK2FWA, SP4JWR, and many others.  There is no way I could
list all of the multi-county callsigns from W/VE, including contest regulars,
county hunters, and more casual ops. It takes all of you to make this contest
fun for us in Texas.

Speaking of fun, I'll share my funniest moment:
I was running on 20M sometime on Sunday morning.  There was a nice pileup going
- when suddenly I'm blasted by a very loud J5OPN. Wow! J5 is Guinea-Bissau! 
However, I wasn't expecting propagation to western Africa - especially at 20 dB
over S9.  I asked for a repeat and the station came back again "J5OPN".  Then I
realized that I was mentally dropping a dash from the first character - the
unknown station was advising me that 15M was open.  D'oh!  I got a great laugh
from that one - took another swig of coffee - and resumed.  Thanks to whomever
you are for the info ... and for the unintended comic relief!  

Thanks to NARS for sponsoring one of the top QSO parties.

73,
Larry K5OT


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