[3830] NeQP W0BH/M Mobile LP
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Fri May 2 21:05:20 EDT 2008
Nebraska QSO Party
Call: W0BH/M
Operator(s): W0BH AB0S
Station: W0BH
Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 29 NE counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12.5
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 102 26
20: 289 151
15:
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------
Total: 391 177 0 Mults = 48 Total Score = 25,296
Club:
Comments:
After a fun multi-op in the Missouri QSO Party, I called Tim, AB0S to see if he
might be interested in a Nebraska QSO Party run. An enthusiastic "yes" later,
we were good to go until the day before when I woke up to hear the news that an
overnight tornado had hit near where Tim lives in Beloit, KS. A phone call to
Tim's house confirmed the tornado, but the tornado damage was north of town.
Still good to go!
The 91 Chevy Astro van, ICOM 706MkIIG, and Hustler verticals worked great in
Oklahoma and Missouri. The setup stayed the same and included three triple-mag
mounts on the roof: front 40CW/20CW/15, rear 40SSB/20SSB/10, and center 80CW.
Two Dell laptops were used, one laptop running NA for logging, keying and rig
control, and one laptop running DeLorme GPS software which also made trip
planning easy. A Kenwood TS440S transceiver and W3NQN bandpass filters were
also available for multi-2 operations at county line stops.
Saturday
The QP started at noon, so I left Hesston, KS about 8:00am enroute to Beloit to
pick up Tim. Beloit is in north central Kansas about an hour from our planned
Nebraska entry into Thayer county where I started last year. Tim was waiting
for me and loaded his things into the van while I attached and guyed the
antennas. On the way to Nebraska, Tim got used to the setup and retrained from
N1MM LOgger to NA by working the Florida QSO Party using his call sign. Noon
found us 20 minutes away from Thayer with the bands in good shape, at least to
Florida!
For Saturday, I'd planned a 21 county route. The route headed north through
counties I'd worked last year, to the middle of the state where 5 counties
appeared which had never been activated since record-keeping began in 1999. One
of the most enjoyable aspects of this QSO party is attempting to break county
records nicely reported by N0WY on the NEQP web site. Last year out of 25
counties visited, I broke 16 county records and established 2 new ones with
certificates appearing for each! Each county essentially requires a new log and
mults start over in each county. As Tim operated, I would keep a running tally
of the county score to see when the record became ours. Since there's only one
Nebraska plaque, Nebraska mobile stations compete directly with Nebraska fixed
stations even though the rules are different for each. Mobile stations are at a
scoring disadvantage because fixed station mults apply to their entire QSO
total, so we decided to go for country records instead and go to more
counties.
I attached two paddles to the Logikey K5 keyer so Tim and I could both operate
or chat with the crew who followed us along. Tim operated most of the CW this
trip and I handled the mike while he logged. Our first three-county-line stop
gave me a chance to break out the second radio. A quick check showed I was
interfering with Tim's radio even with my 20m filter in place, so I put a 40m
filter on his radio which appeared to correct the problem. As I quickly ran off
10 SSB Qs, Tim kept trying to tell me that he wasn't hearing anyone else either!
Since I was standing outside the van in the back with a rather cold breeze, I
put Tim back on the air and we decided to leave multi-2 to next time.
Western Nebraska is really wide open spaces and rolling prairie. We'd been
running through intermittent drizzle and rain most of the day, but it seemed to
clear a bit as evening came along. Four deer crossed in front of us and a number
of wild turkeys and a few pheasants made their appearance on one lonely stretch.
I generally try to stay calm, but I fear I did raise my voice a bit as Tim made
a beeline for a very low overhanging tree during a county line stop. I flashed
back to when XYL Lorna once took off my antennas the easy way going into a
parking garage (I was snoozing). This time we stopped in time.
As we neared Loup county from Custer county, we had a nice run going on SSB
with everyone anticipating the county line. Normally at county lines, we update
the computer CW keying setup and back up the log file, but this time it didn't
happen because we were running SSB. Bad decision. Tim apparently hit the wrong
two keys at the same time (like I did in Oklahoma) which caused the logging
program to corrupt the log file and crash. I later recovered the 16 missing Qs
using Norton Utilities, but it took a few minutes to get up and running again
with lots of (patient) people waiting. Lesson learned (twice!).
After a nice sunset (we did notice dark clouds in the west and I remembered
John, N6MU, commenting that we might get wet), we found ourselves deviating
four miles north from our route to get to the southern border of Cherry county,
the largest county in Nebraska. On a map, Cherry looks like it would hold 10 or
12 of the smaller counties. With Tim now driving, we climbed up a potholed road
through fairly wild country to the county line and continued on up the hill to
get better signals. The wind was really blowing, but we broke the county
record, then decided to return to the two-county line for a few more Qs since
the FQP was over for the day. Tim turned off the engine and lights as we got a
nice 15 minute run going in the pitch-black night. Imagine our surprise and
shock when Tim turned on the lights and we found ourselves in a snowstorm! The
flakes were small at first, but as we headed back down the hill, they got
bigger. High beams weren't an option and even low beams light reflected back so
much that it was hard to stay on the road. Luckily, the road was above freezing
so it wasn't slick, but visibility was so bad that I even used the GPS to tell
Tim about upcoming curves in the road!
I kept operating while Tim drove, and band conditions were GREAT! After
finishing a run on 40m, I went to 80m and got high SWR. Back to 40m, same
result .. even the tuner couldn't handle it. I tried all antennas .. nothing.
We were hearing fine but the antennas simply wouldn't tune. With weather
conditions so bad, it was probably a good thing since driving was almost a two
person job. Wnen we got to a town, we checked the antennas and saw no obvious
ice buildup on the outside of the antennas (they had worked fine in rain most
of the day). Tim suggested the arc plug in the coax switch so we swapped
switches. No luck. We also swapped some coax. No luck. I even put on a dry
Hustler vertical. No luck. It was late, so we kept going into gradually
improving conditions. I continued to test the radio as we drove along. The snow
finally stopped over two hours later as we neared North Platte, our overnight
destination. A few minutes after the snow stopped, I tried the radio again and
everything was back to normal. If any of you have a theory, Tim and I would
like to hear it! A few contacts later, we arrived in North Platte an hour late,
two counties short, disappointed at missing "prime time" conditions, much more
tired than we would have expected, but very, very happy to be safe and sound.
Sunday
The Nebraska QSO Party is a 24 hour event from noon-noon CDT. We started Day 2
shortly after 8:00am with a short photo shoot of my front ham radio plate still
covered with a half inch of ice. I also had fun trying to open all the frozen
doors on the van. But the sky was clear and the frost and ice quickly melted as
the sun came over the roof of the motel. A good day to travel.
We started on 40m, but 20m came alive as we headed rapidly east on I-80. Since
we were travelling through big counties and had less than 4 hours and 10
counties to go, the speed felt good. In one town, we pulled over to reset the
GPS and a tanker trucker pulled in next to us. He wandered over and his first
question was, "You guys aren't with the FCC are you?" When we assured him we
weren't, he asked us about our antennas and then mentioned that his radio got
out pretty good, too! Another time, the Logikey K5 keyer which I'd bought new
for the trip started sending things we weren't telling it to send. The paddles
would reverse and random garbage came out. I tried resetting it with no luck
before swapping in a spare keyer which I'd grabbed from my shack at the last
minute.
We were running out of time. With 40 minutes to go, we found ourselves at a
three-county line with lots of action. After 5 minutes and 11 Qs in Kearney
county (just enough for the mobile bonus), we headed west on a 20+ mile long
county line road between Adams and Webster counties. It was a sand road but
muddy at times, so we had two good reasons for keeping to the center! A really
nice run developed as we drove towards the final Nuckolls/Clay county line with
lots of folks were on deck. It was obvious we wouldn't have much time at the
last line, and even more obvious as we hit a Road Closed sign and had to detour
3 miles around. We did and got back on track with 4 miles and 10 minutes to go.
With one mile to go, another Road Closed. One mile south and one mile west
finally got us into Nuckolls county. I was expecting a big pileup, but 20m had
gone long and we lost almost everyone by the time we arrived in Clay. Noon came
and went all too quickly with only 6 Qs in Nuckolls and 5 Qs in Clay. John,
N6Mu, had been following me along all day with perfect success until we got to
Clay. We barely made contact in Nuckolls and the Clay county line was down in a
gully, so his signal dropped out and we couldn't confirm Clay. Afterwards we
drove up a hill and worked John in Clay but then realized the road we were on
wasn't sand. It was too narrow to turn around without sliding into the ditch,
so the only option was to back downhill through mud to sand just on the other
side of the intersection. I started sliding sideways in the muddy area but
corrected and made it (unlike Missouri, but that's another story). Lunch time!
Stats
We operated 12:29, 568 Qs, 228 unique calls, 4 dupes, 970 miles.
States not worked : AK AR HI ID ND RI SC SD WY
Canadian mults worked : QC ON MB BC
NE worked : BANN SALI
DX worked : CU HK
CW PH
--------------
40 102 26 = 128
20 289 151 = 440
--------------
391 177 = 568 Qs and 48 unique mults Final score: 25296
Counties (in visited order)
* broke county record (13)
** established new county record (5)
Saturday
1 THAY 21
2 FILL 24
3 YORK 28 *
4 POLK 25
5 MERR 17 *
6 PLAT 17 *
7 NANC 21 *
8 BOON 21 *
9 GREE 10 **
10 WHEE 24 **
11 GARF 17 **
12 VLLY 19 **
13 CUST 24 *
14 LOUP 24 **
15 BLAI 10 *
16 THOM 19 *
17 HOOK 28 *
18 CHER 21 *
Sunday
19 LINC 17 *
20 DAWS 18 *
21 BUFF 12
22 PHEL 16
23 HRLN 15
24 FRNK 24 *
25 KEAR 11
26 ADMS 36
27 WEBS 38
28 NUCK 6
29 CLAY 5
Thanks to the following ops for 5 or more contacts:
66 N6MU
25 KF2O
13 VA3XOV
12 VE3CRU
11 N8II
10 KF4MH
9 W7LPF KI2G
8 VA2SG K8NYG K6YK
7 W7GVE WB2ABD
6 K7PWL
5 KA3DRR K4XU KG5U
W0BH Award
Most Overall Qs : N6MU/66 KF2O/25 VA3XOV/13
Most CW Qs : N6MU/34 KF2O/14 VA3XOV/13
Most PH Qs : N6MU/32 KF2O/11 VA3XOV/6
Most Counties : N6MU/28 KF2O/17 VA3XOV/13
Tim and I both want to thank everyone who found us amidst the Florida QSO Party
craziness! Special thanks to John, N6MU for his astounding 28/29 counties and 66
Qs with us. Thanks also to the Heartland DX Association for sponsoring the
event. My next scheduled QSO Party will be Texas in the fall. Details on my
QRZ.COM listing as we get closer to the event. Until then ...
73, Bob/w0bh and Tim/ab0s
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