[3830] InQP W1NN/M Mobile LP

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                    Indiana QSO Party

Call: W1NN/M
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: W1NN

Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 16 IN counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:            
   80:   63     10
   40:  275    206
   20:  160     70
   15:   12     20
   10:            
--------------------
Total:  510    306  CW Mults = 60  Ph Mults = 68  Total Score = 169,728

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

This was a solo effort with all operating and driving being performed by me in a
rental car.  I picked up the car on Friday afternoon and hooked things up on
Friday night and installed the rig and other equipment early Saturday morning. 
I ran into a couple of problems and didn’t leave Akron until 8:15 AM Ohio time,
so I didn’t cross the IN border until about 20 minutes before the contest start.
I couldn’t reach my planned starting point so I began on the Adams/Wells county
line a couple of minutes late.  With my planned route thus in shambles, I
basically played things by ear for the remainder of the contest.  

I decided to do most of my operating from two-county lines so I tried to stay in
the area where the counties were small and it wouldn’t take too long to get from
one two-county line point to another.  However, I did stick with my original
plan to end up at the four county line of DeKalb/LaGrange, Noble and Steuben. 


Things didn’t go too badly until about 8 PM.  The distances from one operating
spot to another were quite short and I either just shut off the rig and drove,
or called CQ on a band where I wouldn’t be too busy.  Being my first time
participating in this QSO party, I had a few problems with the route but managed
to get back on track without too much trouble.  

Skip on 40 was quite short and I was able to do quite well with both contacts
and multipliers on 40 SSB.  On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be as much
CW activity on either 40 or 20 as in other parties, and I had the impression
that there were some ops who were operating in the other contests going on
during the weekend who were not calling IN stations.  As a couple of others have
mentioned, it would be great if someone developed a software program that
allowed multiple contests to be logged at the same time.  Compared with most QSO
parties I had a much higher percentage of SSB contacts and multipliers this
time.

80 meters was a major disappointment.  I can usually do very well on 80 CW from
about 6 PM onwards but I just couldn’t get anything going on this band.  And
even 40 seemed flaky later in the contest.  As a result, the last several hours
of the contest were just awful.  In fact, I only had 24 actual contacts (45
contacts counting county line contacts) during the final two hours of the
contest, worse than I can ever remember doing.  It took me a long time to get to
the DEK/LAG/NOB/STE point but in the 25 minutes I was there I could only find 5
stations to work, so it was pretty much a waste (although it did put me fairly
close to the Ohio line for going home).  

Overall, however, things went quite well, especially for a first time effort,
and I really enjoyed the operating and the beautiful spring scenery.  I like the
rules of this event and I will definitely be back again.   

Thanks for all the Q’s!

73,

Hal W1NN


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