[3830] CaQP N6DE SOCntyExp HP
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Thu Oct 9 15:54:19 EDT 2008
California QSO Party
Call: N6DE
Operator(s): N6DE
Station: N6DE
Class: SOCntyExp HP
QTH: TUOL
Operating Time (hrs): 23:50
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160:
80: 110 105
40: 261 185
20: 328 544
15: 5 3
10: 1
6:
2:
--------------------
Total: 704 838 Mults = 58 Total Score = 219,704
Club:
Comments:
Elecraft K3
ACOM 1010
Force12 C3S tribander at 40ft.
40m and 80m Inv-Vees at 45ft.
75m Inv-Vee at 35ft.
Yamaha EF2400iS generator
Tower trailer
Tuolumne County
Bear Mountain
5170' elevation
For pictures of the expedition, and HFTA analysis of the site, check out:
http://public.fotki.com/N6DE/cqp/cqp2008/
Many thanks to the people who made this expedition possible:
-West Valley ARA for the tower trailer, especially Svend KF6EMB
-All the people who offered antenna supports when the WVARA tower trailer
prospect looked bleak: K6ENT, K6TD, N6YEU, AD6E, KX7M, and N6EM
This appears to be the highest CQP score ever attained from Tuolumne County,
regardless of category.
What a memorable county expedition!
I wanted to do another county expedition this year. N6RNO asked me if I would
cover Tuolumne, and I said sure. K6TD gave me a good lead on a site in
Tuolumne that he and the N6RC group were originally planning to activate before
they planned on Monterey County. However, when I called to reserve the camping
area, I was told that the whole area would be closed for the months of October
and November. I called a few days later to see if the story checked out, and I
was told the same thing. So I did some research in Google Earth on potential
CQP expedition sites in Tuolumne County. What an excellent resource Google
Earth is for county expeditioners! I found several good possibilities, and did
a recon mission 21 days before CQP. I ended up choosing a secluded location
near Bear Mountain at the end of a Forest Service dirt road.
At this point, I felt like I was ready to roll. I had everything I needed to
make this happen, and had made plans to borrow a tower trailer. W6TQG and I
checked on the trailer earlier in September. Nine days before CQP, I went back
to check on the trailer again with the intent to inflate one of the tires.
That's when I was horrified to find that the tower had been vandalized. Some
morons evidently got the bright idea to steal the tower sections for scrap
metal, and tried to yank the tower sections loose. The attempt was
unsuccessful, but in the process, they severely bent the inner
section so that the tower was totally unusable.
After I sent a frantic e-mail to the NCCC reflector asking for help, I received
several great offers and leads for masts, portable towers, and tower trailers.
I had already started down this path when I got a phone call from WVARA member,
Svend KF6EMB. He told me he had spent the weekend repairing the tower, and
asked when I'd like to come pick it up!! I had no idea he was even going to
work on it. Svend is a highly skilled welder and machinist with access to many
great tools. I picked up the tower trailer that night and was back in business!
I really owe Svend big time for this!
I planned to leave the Bay Area early Wednesday morning. I was late as usual,
and got stuck in Bay Area after-work traffic. 171 miles later, I reached the
Bear Mountain site at 11pm. I put on my Petzl Tikka Plus headlamp and built my
tent. The weather was unexpectedly comfortable that evening. (It turned out to
be the warmest evening of the whole trip.) I threw in my sleeping bag and had
gone to sleep for a short while before I awoke to something hitting the tent!
It turned out to be sprinkles of rain. I went back to sleep and awoke in the
morning to find moisture on the floor of the tent which entered through the top
screen since I had not installed the rain fly over it yet.
Thursday brought sunny weather. I unpacked and spent the day working on
antennas, setting up the tower trailer, and building the station. I had
problems mounting the C3S to the mast because the elements were hitting tree
branches. I would need to move and re-level the trailer. I also realized that
I needed to rebuild my 75m wire as I had already done with my 40m and 80m wires.
I ran out of daylight and had to stop. Thursday night brought an extremely
clear sky full of stars. It's incredible to observe the immense palate of
stars in a clear location removed from city lights. Finally, I was in my
sleeping bag ready to doze off when I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to
put on the tent's rain fly that day! Though the sky was clear, I didn't want it
to rain in the tent again, so I jumped out of my sleeping bag, put on my
headlamp, and again worked on my tent in the dark!
Friday was a cloudy day and significantly cooler. Fortunately, I had a really
productive day. All the antennas worked, and my radio setup in the tent had
checked out well in Friday night's CQP practice. However, it had started
sprinkling outside, and I hadn't fixed dinner yet. I fired up the cook stove
as fast as I could in the rain before the skies really unloaded. That was a
cold night with heavy rain off and on throughout.
Saturday the weather was miserable. I was ready to start the contest at 9am on
20CW, but after first transmitting, had lost rig control and CW keying through
Microham. ARGH!!! I missed the first 20 minutes troubleshooting the problem.
It appeared to be RF getting into the Microham unit. This happened when I
transmitted with more than 300W on 20m. The only way to recover each time was
to reboot my laptop. Two turns of the Microham connection cables around a #31
toroid still didn't solve the problem. I ended up just transmitting under 300W
on 20m CW all weekend, and when I went to 20m SSB, I cranked up the output to
600W, just manually entered 14000 SSB in Writelog instead of using rig control,
and would have to reboot my laptop whenever I wanted to QSY to CW afterwards to
regain Microham life. I tried to exit the Microham router and restart it
without rebooting the computer, but no luck. I didn't catch this problem
during Friday night's practice because I had only operated 40m and 80m!
Throughout the contest, I took the opportunity to use these rebooting breaks to
shut down the generator and refuel it. During the rain, I sheltered it under
some trees.
The rain really pounded the tent on Saturday. Several times, the rain made
such a racket on the tent that I had trouble hearing stations and their
reports! This is where some noise canceling headphones would have come in
really handy (I didn't have any). Sorry for all the repeat requests.
Still, at least I was on the air and doing OK until I looked at the floor of my
tent and noticed WATER! I didn't know how it was entering the tent, but had a
good run going and didn't want to stop. I looked around the tent to find
something that could soak up the water, hoping the rain would stop soon. I saw
my military style wool blanket and decided to throw it on the floor to soak up
the mess (bad idea). I kept running, but so did the rain, and later I checked
on the blanket. To my horror, found this heavy blanket nearly saturated! At
this point I just had to stop and take a long break to figure out where this
water was coming from, drain the water from the tent, and fix the root cause,
while the rain kept pouring down. By this time, the area around the tent was
muddy and my clothes were getting soaked. The rain finally stopped around 7pm,
but Saturday evening was cold, and I no longer had the use of the blanket! At
least I had an amplifier and thawed my fingers from the tube fan exhaust!
As for the band conditions, most stations were really weak on 20m, and I had to
ask for lots of fills. I kept wondering if the wind had turned my C3S, but no,
it was still pointing at 70 degrees. Then after contacting a strong KH6LC, I
wondered if I had mounted the C3S backwards, so I went out again to stare at
the antenna. It was correctly pointed toward the US. I was then wondering if
I had done something stupid to crank in some attenuation on my K3, but couldn't
find anything wrong. I didn't feel so bad when I heard N6BV at N6O trying to
dig someone out on 20 SSB asking for several fills on a station who I could
just barely tell was there.
I went to 40m at 3:30pm with the intention to work W7 before the band went
long. I did work two ID stations then, but the band was also wide open to the
east coast, and I was surprised that I was able to run them! I stayed for
almost two hours, and then made the mistake of moving back to 20m to CQ on SSB
and try to pick up VY1. The band was open to TX but the rate was slower than
if I had stayed on 40m. About that time, I needed to take an hour off for the
tent fiasco. When I got back on the air at almost 7pm, I thought 40m was not
quite as good as it was earlier!
I operated until 8Z, and then went back on the air at 1418Z. Things started
well, but between 1330Z and 1430Z, I couldn't get any traction anywhere! I had
12 QSOs during that time! 20m had not reasonably opened yet, and almost no one
was answering me on 40m. Then 20m opened, and for the rest of the day, my most
productive band-mode was 20 SSB. I wasn't getting good rate on 20 CW, and I
couldn't get anything going on 15m or 40m. There were lots of casual stations
giving QSO numbers less than 10 on 20 SSB. This is where two VE8 stations
called me, one with QSO #9, the other with #10.
You know that CQP is a major contest when it riles up the SSTV trolls and
brings other lowlifes out of their caves to intentionally QRM you on 20 SSB and
80 SSB. I experienced a lot of intentional interference last weekend. I'm
proud that CQP is such a force on the air that it serves as another reminder to
these unscrupulous groups that they do not solely own the bands! It also tells
you a lot about the lack of character of these individuals when they launch
f-bombs on the air if they think they're being ignored.
Monday was an absolutely gorgeous day, and I almost got sunburned finishing
teardown! The blanket totally dried. :) I didn't see any large animals walk
through my camp, but saw two bears driving up to the site. I also heard
something howling at night (coyotes?). I heard gunshots the entire time I was
there. I guess it's prime time hunting season. A few hunters drove up to the
site on Thursday. I was on a ladder at the time, trying to mount the C3S! I
moved some things so that they could turn around. Then on Saturday in the
rain, the same guys drove up again, perhaps hoping that I'd left. Nope, I'm
still here! They had a heck of a time trying to make a 10-point turn in the
mud, and in the process, ran over my 75m coax, but it survived!
The Elecraft K3 is the perfect expedition radio. The generator worked well and
used 4-5 gallons of gasoline for the whole trip.
I need to stop making wagers with N6ED on what my CQP total will be! I owe him
yet another six-pack, and now dinner. I can't remember if K6NA was in on the
dinner wager too. :)
This expedition was a refreshing break from the city life of the Bay Area.
Would I do it all again? YES!!
Great activity from VE3 - nice job by CCO! I had 24 DX QSOs.
Some QSO statistics:
CA QSOs: 209 (14%)
non-CA QSOs: 1333 (86%)
Top 10 non-CA:
TX: 125 QSOs
VE3: 78
PA: 61
IL: 58
WI: 55
MN: 54
MO: 53
TN: 43
FL: 41
WA: 41
Rarest 5:
AK: 1
NT: 2
ID: 2
VE2: 2
VE5: 3
Some other mults relatively well represented:
HI: 8
ND: 6
SD: 12
RI: 6
VT: 10
SC: 10
MT: 8
DE: 9
Thanks to all of you for the QSOs, and see you in next year's CQP from
somewhere!
73...
-Dean - N6DE
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