[3830] FlQP K0RC SOABMixed LP

[webform at b41h.net]

                    Florida QSO Party

Call: K0RC
Operator(s): K0RC
Station: K0RC

Class: SOABMixed LP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 19

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
   40:   88      6
   20:  352     96
   15:    0      0
   10:    0      0
--------------------
Total:  440    102  CW Mults = 67  Ph Mults = 33  Total Score = 196,400

Club: Minnesota Wireless Association

Comments:

This was one of the few full-time efforts I have done in quite a while. I set
three goals; a sweep, 500 Q's, and 200,000 points. I made the first two but
came in shy of the 200K mark.

The MN to FL path is always excellent, especially on 20m. This weekend there
were signals maxing out my s-meter at +60 dB over S9, even with the 18 dB
attenuator turned on. That's not to say some signals didn't get lost in the
noise at times, there was precipitation static that disabled operating for a
short period of time on Sunday morning. I converted that *opportunity* into
"lunch time".

The dominant mode was CW again this year. It provided 85% of all my contacts.
In addition, I concentrated on working mobile stations. They are 63% of all
contacts. The top number of mobile qso's went like this:

36 - NN4TO
34 - K4KG
32 - N4KK
31 - N4EEB
30 - NO5W
27 - K4OJ
25 - W4AN
24 - K9ES
24 - N4PN
24 - W5WMU

My log shows all 67 counties worked exclusively with the mobile operators,
meaning I obtained a county sweep by concentrating on their itineraries. A
clean sweep would not be possible without their participation because they
filled 22 county vacancies where I never worked a fixed station.

The two most rare counties for me were Gulf and Walton in the northwest section
of the state. I have 3 contacts in both counties, all six of them provided by
mobile stations. I was surprised by this statistic because it *felt like* there
was very thorough coverage in this part of the state. It must have been a mental
aberration because my final county hold-out was way down south. I worked all but
three counties during the first 10 hours. I still needed Gulf, Franklin, and
Hardee when I started out Sunday morning with 272 contacts in the log.

My second contact put Franklin in the log and in less than 30 minutes later
Gulf was checked off as well. That left Hardee county as the hold out for a
sweep. I checked mobile itineraries and saw this county listed numerous times
although it would not be be visited until later in the day. It was *fun* seeing
a mobile heading in the right direction, only to make a *wrong* turn, away from
Hardee before they got there!

I went to 20m phone and tried running for a while but quickly gave up that
effort as my rate meter was approaching 200 per hour with few Florida stations
calling. I can attest that there's plenty of stations out there that want to
jump in and participate in the FLQP contest! I was smiling all along the way. I
did not realize Florida had annexed a lot of real estate from NY to NM recently,
even a couple of slices of Canada too! "QRZd the Florida station in New Jersey?"
:-)

I'm happy with my results running Single Op and low power. I used two antennas,
the HyGain TH-11DX at 70 feet and a 40m vertical wire dipole off the side of the
same tower. The transceiver is a Kenwood TS-950SDX and SM-230 bandscope driven
by a WinKey USB and N1MM Logger on a laptop computer.

Congratulations to all the fine mobile operators who pulled my signal out of
the piles of callers.  I think the sound of the callers is a phenomenon unique
to QSO Parties, where a wall of *noise* erupts as a new county is entered.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

73 de Bob - KØRC in MN


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/