[3830] TxQP W0BH/M SO Mobile LP
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Mon Oct 27 17:15:54 EDT 2008
Texas QSO Party
Call: W0BH/M
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH/M
Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: 33 TX counties
Operating Time (hrs): 17.4
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 26 0
40: 370 134
20: 852 190
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 1248 324 0 Mults = 114 Total Score = 534,688
Club:
Comments:
(Sorry for the very late post. It took awhile to unscramble my log file, and
then an upcoming QST article took all of my writing attention for awhile. But
finally ... )
Roving the 2008 Texas QSO Party: Bridge Out!
Roving a state QSO party is so much fun, that in my memory at least, it hardly
seems like half a year has passed since Oklahoma, Nebraska and Missouri. And
how could I forget last year in Texas? We finished out the TQP operating from
the back of a flatbed tow truck! So here it is, 2008, and another chance to
make it past the infamous freeway bridge in Potter County near Amarillo where
the van fuel pump electronics died and left us five counties short.
The '91 Chevy Astro van, ICOM 706MkIIG, and Hustler vertical 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 was already programmed with the route from last year. Hale
county was added as an overnight stop to bring the county total to 34.
My driver this trip was Wendell, N0KZV. Wendell is an Airline Transport Pilot
/ jet flight instructor and definitely knows how to follow a GPS and "flight"
plan! New or improved equipment included an MFJ digital voice keyer, a Heil
noise-canceling headset with several ferrites attached and an audio-to-FM
converter, which let Wendell listen to the action over the FM radio (worked
great). We headed out after work on Friday and enjoyed excellent operating
conditions as we tested out the equipment. The only scare was finding the gas
pump nozzles covered at the first gas station we stopped at in Guymon,
Oklahoma. I’d heard about gas shortages in Texas after Hurricane Ike, but
fortunately (for us) it was a pump problem and other stations had plenty of
gas.
Saturday
After an overnight in Guymon, Wendell and I headed south to Texas on a
beautiful cloudless and windless day. We were determined to stay on schedule
by starting at the HANS/HUTC county line and almost made it. With just a few
miles to go, the TQP started and we were off. Conditions were excellent on
both 40m and 20m and I soon had an idea of who was going to "ride along" with
us during the weekend. After a nice run, we continued on and I went to 40m SSB
for the first time. Texas was coming in nicely and then all the sudden it
wasn’t. I quickly checked 20m which was OK, so I assumed something bad
happened to my 40m resonator and we stopped. Nothing obvious, so I changed it
out for a spare, made a quick tuning adjustment, and we were back in business.
I always look forward to county line stops, so as we pulled up to the Roberts /
Hemphill / Gray / Wheeler stop I was ready for a run, and Wendell got his first
listen to some serious fun on both CW and SSB. The rates were so good
(200-300, 380 peak), that I didn’t even take time to fix the extra dit in the
memory keyer I used to send the third county. I kept sending "EH 599 ROBE"
instead of "ES 599 ROBE." I remember I had trouble programming it because
several were calling me after I sent "Wait" and I couldn’t hear my keyer. I
tried several times and finally went with what I had, hoping it was right.
After overstaying our schedule, we headed out on a dirt road as indicated by
the GPS. Since I’d previously programmed the route, I assumed it was
accurate although the road got much worse and I certainly didn’t recall it
from the year before. As we bumped up and down some serious Texas hill
country, we could see the road we needed to get to, and the GPS said there was
a road to get there, but there wasn’t. All roads kept turning away from
where we wanted to go. We finally decided we were cruising some "new" gas and
oil roads and headed back out the way we came, arriving back at the four-county
line an hour later with the GPS now showing the obvious route out. The first
time, the GPS had calculated an alternate route thinking we’d missed the turn
.. a scenic route to be sure. Although we were behind schedule, at least N1LN
and N4PN benefited from our mistake since they still needed three of the four
counties. N1LN even got three more Qs on a second band before we moved on.
The day continued, but we were now an hour behind schedule. We decided to skip
Foard county, knowing that at least one other mobile was scheduled there.
Recalculating the route (what did we ever do without a GPS?) now put us 20
minutes ahead of schedule when we crossed into Cottle county and saw our first
"Bridge Out Far Ahead" sign. What did that mean? The detour took us very much
the wrong way, so we forged "far ahead" (maybe another 5-10 miles) before the
bridge in question appeared with no detour and a big "Road Closed" sign.
Driving closer, we saw that a very impressive ramp with similarities to a big
roller coaster drop had been cut down to the riverbed for use by heavy
equipment. A similarly impressive up was on the other side. I kept operating
while Wendell got out of the van to investigate. As luck would have it, the
riverbed appeared dry, and the other side didn’t seem quite as steep as the
ride down, so after looking at me a couple of times, Wendell decided to go for.
I wish we had a movie of the crossing, but we somehow made it up the other side.
I remember telling Wendell to punch it just as we crossed the river. The Astro
with 256,000 miles has another story to tell!
Other than a logging computer crash and a scrambled log file (changed out for a
backup from the previous county), the only other major challenge was the RTTY
contest on 40m. Loud RTTY stations were spread out as low as 7027 and TQP
participants tried (often unsuccessfully) to stay above 7025, so it was a zoo
on 40m CW. I finally went back to 7048, called anyway and to my surprise, got
a very nice run going in spite of RTTY all around.
We now found ourselves in Motley county facing another "Bridge Out Ahead" sign
and no detour. This time Wendell didn’t even slow down. We hoped our turn
just a short distance ahead came before the bridge. No such luck and once
again we found a "Road Closed" sign and a ramp (not nearly so steep this time).
Fearlessly "down then up then onward" .. our new motto! We ended the day with
530 miles on the van and 952 Qs (I found out later after recovering the
scrambled log), thanks to a nice run on 80m CW the last hour.
Sunday
Sunday morning found us in the town of Plainview in Hale county. Both Wendell
and I appreciated the 9:00 am start time since we’d gotten in late after
another real genuine bridge detour and a good supper the night before. After I
plugged in the equipment and turned on the power, I was greeted with no "OK" and
stream of dits from my keyer. This had happened in Guymon as well, but after I
unplugged the computer interface and plugged it back in, the dits stopped so I
thought nothing more of it. This time the problem didn’t go away and again
nothing obvious, so I swapped out the keyer with a spare only to find the same
problem. It must be the MFJ travel paddle or the cable, and it was .. a break
in the cable at the plug. Since it was almost start time and I didn’t want
to take the time to solder on a new plug, I bent and wire-tied the cable so
that the continuous dits went away and it worked the rest of the day. Memo to
self .. bring along a second paddle in the future!
The final six hours seemed to fly by with 100-plus hourly rates. I was
especially looking forward to driving by the Potter county bridge where we
unfortunately spent so much time last year. This year we didn’t miss the
truck parking / rest area and found ourselves stopped in sight of the bridge.
I worked both John, N6MU and Paul, N4PN who remembered last year as I told them
where we were. This time the van started, we drove under "the Bridge," and
Wendell drove us through some really nice "new" country. Other than a bee
landing on my <Esc> key and some cockleburr surprises, no further adventures or
bridge closings appeared as we made it to the final Sherman/Moore county line
and a great outdoor lunch after the closing bell.
Stats
We operated 17 hrs 22 min, 1572 Qs, 342 unique calls, 23 dupes, 1374 miles,
32¢/qso
States not worked : ME RI KY AK UT WY ND SD
Canadian mults worked : ON BY SK AB BC
TX worked : 62
DX worked : CU LY DL OK SM HA
QSO Breakdown
CW PH *KK5LO and W3DYA
---------------
80 26 0 = 26 Bonus
40 370 134 = 504 county bonus 33000
20 852 190 = 1042 mobile bonus 1000*
---------------
1248 324 = 1572 Qs and 114 mults Final score: 534688
County Breakdown (in visited order)
Saturday Sunday
1 HANS 40 Hansford 22 HALE 47 Hale
2 HUTC 26 Hutchinson 23 SWIS 53 Swisher (10 on Saturday)
3 OCHI 27 Ochiltree 24 CAST 73 Castro
4 LIPS 37 Lipscomb 25 PARM 52 Parmer
5 HEMP 78 Hemphill 26 DSMI 53 Deaf Smith
6 ROBE 69 Roberts 27 RAND 50 Randall
7 WHEE 60 Wheeler 28 POTT 41 Potter
8 GRAY 122 Gray 29 OLDH 69 Oldham
9 CARS 39 Carson 30 HART 64 Hartley
10 ARMS 25 Armstrong 31 DALM 57 Dallam
11 DONL 31 Donley 32 SHMN 58 Sherman
12 HALL 52 Hall 33 MOOR 29 Moore
13 COLW 39 Collingsworth
14 CHIL 26 Childress
15 HDMN 21 Hardeman
16 COTT 38 Cottle
17 KING 34 King
18 DICK 61 Dickens
19 MOTL 52 Motley
20 FLOY 18 Floyd
21 BRIS 31 Briscoe
Special thanks to the following ops for 10 or more contacts:
40 N4PN
39 N6MU
34 N1LN
29 WA3HAE NX5M
25 W9IU
24 KO1U
21 N3RJ W4PM N3UM
20 N4OX K3TW N8SS K4ZGB
17 KN4Y K7BG W0EAR
16 K5LH W3CP K8MFO KB9OWD
15 K8QWY DL3DXX N3KR K3TX K4AMC N5DO
14 W2LHL W2CVW VE3KP K8CW
13 W1DWA
12 LY2ZZ W4HSA WA2VQV KS5A
11 N3DXX W4RQ HA7UG
10 W7GVE NF4A
Texas Mobiles worked
9 W3DYA/m
8 KK5LO/m
7 N5BA/m
5 N5NA/m
4 KB5U/m N3BB/m
3 NO5W/m
2 N5XJ/m
1 K5NA/m N5AC/m N5UV/m WB0TEV/m
W0BH Award Winners Honorable Mention
Most Overall Qs : N4PN/40 N6MU/39 N1LN/34
Most CW Qs : N6MU/39 N4PN/32 WA3HAE/28
Most PH Qs : N1LN/9 many/8 many/6
N5MLP/9
Most Counties : N6MU/29 N4PN/27 NX5M/26
WA3HAE/26
Wendell and I both want to thank everyone who found us along the way and helped
make this run so enjoyable! Thanks also to the Texas QSO Party Committee for
overseeing the event and special thanks to Chuck, NO5W, for managing the
details and the logs.
Until the next one ...
73, Bob/w0bh and Wendell/n0kzv
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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