[3830] OhQP W1NN/M Mobile LP

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                    Ohio QSO Party

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

Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 9 Counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
   80:   76      2
   40:  307     64
   20:  182    107
   15:    0      0
   10:    0      0
--------------------
Total:  565    173  CW Mults = 73  Ph Mults = 58  Total Score = 170,693

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

This was another solo mobile operation from a rental car.  One of these days
I’ll buy a car that I can also use for mobile contesting but my present car is
manual shift and has a console between the driver and passenger seats so it is
not suitable for my kind of mobiling.

Conditions were almost ideal for this event with very short skip on both 20 and
40.  I got one report from Michigan of being 30 db over S9, pretty phenomenal
for a mobile.  I found that I could hold a frequency on 20 SSB and was working
lots of PA, MI and IL on 20 with good signals.  I have learned that it usually
pays off to stay put when you have a good rate going on SSB, so I threw my
schedule out the window and spent a lot more time than planned in my first two
counties working SSB.  This really paid off in picking up SSB multipliers.  I
had 79 SSB contacts in my first county, 60 in my second county, and 18 in my
third.  With the SSB pain thus out of the way, I was able to spend the rest of
the contest concentrating on CW.  

One of the highlights this year was being called on SSB by VY1JA who said I was
about S8.  I know Jay is a good CW op so I asked him to move to CW for a second
mult.  He readily complied and we made the contact easily.  I was also able to
do this with Alaska.  As KU8E and others know very well, moving mults from mode
to mode can really pay off.

Almost everything went very well this year.  The only problem I had was 75 SSB. 
The rig just didn’t want to tune the Hustler and I wasted about 20 minutes
trying to make this work, managing to work only two stations in the process.  75
can be a great place to pick up county mults, and this problem probably cost me
5-10 multipliers.  I used to do quite well on 75 phone when using my old Texas
Bug Catcher but the Hustler resonators are much more difficult to make work on
75.  This is something I need to work on for next time.

County Breakdowns

County	Total Q’s  CW Q’s  SSB Q’s
Erie	  136	     57	     79
Huron	  113	     53	     60
Lorain	   65        47	     18
Ashland	   60	     59	      1
Medina	  101	    100	      1
Wayne	   93	     80	     13
Summit	   72	     72	      0
Stark	   61	     60	      1
Portage	   37	     37	      0


Mobile contesting from a car in a QSO party is something like a Sprint, except
that it is three times as long (in the case of a 12 hour party) and you have to
navigate and drive in addition to all the radio operating.  You can’t afford to
take breaks or sit and enjoy the scenery.  There are always several bands and
modes available to use and you have to try to make the right decisions about
what to do and where to be.  And you have to constantly be thinking several
hours ahead to where you need to be when certain bands are no longer usable and
others open up.  The final hours of these events can make or break your score
and it is crucial that you make sure you are in the right position to take
advantage of the special circumstances you have during the last hours of the
contest.  

There is still a lot more room to grow mobile scores in this and similar QSO
parties.  I managed to pick up 31 Ohio counties on CW and 18 on SSB but when
there are 88 counties available, it is clear that there is much room for
improvement for all of us.    

Thanks for all the contacts and thanks to the sponsors and the folks who do all
the work to keep up the great OQP website, check the logs, and mail out the
awards.

73,  

Hal W1NN


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