[3830] NeQP W0BH Mobile LP

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                    Nebraska QSO Party

Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH

Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 25 Nebraska counties
Operating Time (hrs): 14

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:                   
   40:  211      6       
   20:  304     48       
   15:                   
   10:                   
    6:                   
    2:                   
----------------------------
Total:  515     54      0  Mults = 42  Total Score = 36,258

Club: 

Comments:

A perfect weather weekend for driving combined with LOTS of potential Qs out
there listening for FL but perhaps willing to work a rare Nebraska county or
two made a mobile trip through Nebraska too tempting to pass up this year. The
only hitch, no driver (Lorna was busy grading papers), so this one was solo.

I quickly sketched out a route to include 26 counties in southern and
southeastern Nebraska, printed a copy of the Nebraska county records from a
helpful NQP web site, loaded up a mult file with both FL and NE counties and
headed off Saturday morning from southcentral Kansas to the Nebraska border. I
would have been at the border at the start time of 1700Z except for a very slow
checker at the world's largest discount chain where I stopped to buy a second
window sunshade to keep more glare off the computer screen. At 1711Z, the first
Q was in the log but band conditions left a lot to be desired to everywhere
other than Florida. They got better and FL kept booming in!

Action wasn't non-stop like OKQP, but it was mostly steady and I soon started
to learn the calls of the stations who would follow me along for the weekend. 
Many were working both parties and perhaps realized as time went on that they
had a really good chance of winning this one if they could keep logging me.
Last year's US plaque winner won with only 25 Qs and 19 mults. The contest
within the QP was between John, N6MU in CA and Jeff, W8II in WV and it was FUN!
They both had a great path to NE and both are world-class at finding mobiles as
many of you know from personal experience. They usually worked me first or
second at the county lines, then waited for the pile to go down to pick up SSB.
I'm still amazed at their stats from my log:

      TOT  CW PH   CTY
N6MU   44  27 17  22/25 = 1562 NEQP points
N8II   46  27 19  21/25 = 1533 NEQP points

Other stations who worked me 10+ times in 10+ counties:

NT50     15/15    
K4BAI    15/14
K9NW     12/12
KA3QLF   12/12

and WA2VYA, W1END, K4XU, KO1U, W8TM, KE3VV, K3MQ each with 10/10.
MANY THANKS to all for riding along!

Western Nebraska is really beautiful this time of year and I enjoyed my stop
times at the county lines, once watching a prairie chicken take a dust bath in
the dirt road right in front of me. Also enjoyed working Paul, N4PN, mobile to
mobile as he operated in the FQP. Found out later I was his only NE. One missed
exit on I80 but it really cost me. I could have backtracked 5 miles and saved
myself a frustrating 45 minutes hitting dead end roads trying to get to two
counties which hadn't been visited by a mobile in the 10 years of this QP
(Howard and Sherman). I arrived after the FQP finished and after dark.  40m was
wide open and very quiet, but few takers, so headed back to Grand Island for the
night. There was a bowling convention in town and it took me awhile to find what
must have been the last motel room in town.

Up at 6:00 after 5 hours of sleep and on the road at 7:00 with the radio off
until I got out of town.  Good conditions for the first few hours, but then the
bands tanked and I heard nothing but FQP so that's what I worked. Most of the FL
stations would only work me once and call DUPE when I called them back from a
different county, so I quickly ran out of stations to put in the log. At one
point, almost a half hour went by with no Qs on any band.  Then suddenly things
started picking back up, the "gang" was back, and the rest of the time until the
noon finish went by way too quickly.

I scratched one planned county (Nance) because of my "detour," but otherwise
stayed close my plan in 25 counties:  

THYR 30, FILL 23, CLAY 26, NUCK 18, WEB 27, ADAM 34, KEAR 31, FRNK 15, HARL 14,
FURN 15, GOSP 15, PHLP 22, DWSN 11, BUFF 26, HALL 39, HOWD 26, SHRM 12, MER 13,
HAM 37, POLK 31, YORK 25, BUT 14, SEWD 19, SALN 26, JEFF 20.

Overall, I worked 569 Qs, 192 unique calls and 42 unique multipliers including
one DX (CU) and one lone NE station in 14 hours. 17 counties were activated on
Saturday and 8 on Sunday. Also forgot to write down the starting mileage so no
mileage total to report but I went 360 miles on Sunday including my trip back
to Kansas .. don't really want to know anyway with $3 gas! The van and radio
worked perfectly: Chevy Astro, ICOM 706MkIIG w/tuner, two Hustler vertical
stacks on triple-mags, NA logging software.

And finally, thanks to the Heartland DX Association for sponsoring this event.
Would I do it again?  Wait until next year to find out!

73, Bob, w0bh


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