[3830] OhQP N3ZL(@WD4EOG) SOAB LP

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                    Ohio QSO Party

Call: N3ZL
Operator(s): N3ZL
Station: WD4EOG

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: SC
Operating Time (hrs): ~3.5

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
   80:   26     22
   40:    8      3
   20:            
   15:            
   10:            
--------------------
Total:   34     25  CW Mults = 23  Ph Mults = 22  Total Score = 4,185

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

100W + Wires

This was the Not-Meant-To-Be QSO Party.

Friday afternoon after class I spent a few hours working pretty hard in the
heat and humidity on getting an inverted L up for 160m for this fall/winter. I
got it up (not very high) without too much problem but then the radials took
quite a while to lay out through the overgrown jungle behind the ham shack
here, at one point stirring up an underground nest of some sort of flying
stinging creatures (hornets?) After I decided I couldn't go any longer without
something to drink I headed back to the dining hall to grab some dinner and met
up with some guys who invited me to play frisbee with them. I played frisbee for
two hours with them and headed back to my room where my roommate was just
leaving with a friend of his saying they were going to get free pancakes and
invited me along. I went with them... little did I know the pancakes would't be
served until 2AM! I finally got to bed a little before 3AM, completely exhausted
from the antenna work, frisbee, and staying up so long.

I had been planning on doing a somewhat serious effort in the OQP but didn't
wake up until shortly after it had started. I grabbed some brunch and was about
to head out to the shack when some guys down the hall came by and wanted me to
meet a few people who had stopped by for the weekend to visit.. to make a long
story short, different things kept happening and I didn't get out to the shack
until after dinner, around 22z.

When I got to the shack the one other ham here (grad student only interested in
2m FM) was just leaving the shack. We stood outside the shack chatting about
some work we could do over the next few weeks and were walking around to the
other side of the general vicinity when 2 campus police cars pulled up. The
first pulled up to my parked van up the road a little ways and the second
stayed back to inquire what we were doing snooping around up there. (It is
quite off the beaten path and isolated area.) We told them everything -- he
didn't know there was a ham shack there or much of anything about ham radio at
all -- and he requested to see our student IDs so he could scan them to verify
our status as currently enrolled students. It took quite a while before they
radioed back to tell him that we really were currently enrolled. Apparently
someone saw the two of us walking around and called to report us. Eventually
the cops left and the other ham left leaving me to finally get going in the
OQP, now around 23z.

I turned on the rig on 40m and all I heard was S9+40db QRN everywhere. Not
right. I couldn't hear a single signal anywhere on the band. My cell phone
rings, my roommate. Once off the phone, I went up to 20m just to see what I
could hear there and the band sounded just fine, so I went back to 40m. The
receiver was still overloaded with QRN. I was getting frustrated and finally
went down to 80m. QRN, but not like 40m. I made a few QSOs on 80m when Alex,
the other ham, showed back up to see how I was doing. I talked to him for a few
minutes again and once he left, I QSY'd back to 40m and the overpowering QRN was
gone -- and signals were finally able to be heard. By this time (0050z) nearly
everyone had already gone to 80m. My cell phone rings again, now my parents. I
talked to them for quite a while. A few more calls from my roommate ensured my
distractedness until around 02z, I turned my phone off. I checked 40m
occasionally but concentrated on S&Ping across 80m, alternating between cw and
phone.

The Clemson ham shack is separated only by a concrete wall from a FM broadcast
transmitter and some other radio gear with the dipoles running in the close
vicinity of all of this. The only thing I can think of is that something from
over there was wiping out 40m until it shut off for the day. It is interesting
that I've also been deaf on 160m with a "too high" QRN level from here, even
with an inverted-L and an 80m dipole, I have yet to hear a single signal
anywhere on topband since I've been here. (Not W1AW, nothing!) Something's
wreaking havoc up here on 160 and 40m...

Learned lessons: 

1) Don't go for free pancakes unless they're in the morning.
2) Watch out for the cops.
3) Ignore phone calls unless you know it's really important.

Relearned lessons:

1) Nothing ever ever goes as planned.
2) Something is QRMing the heck out of 40/160m here.

I hope to catch you all again as soon as I get away from the cops, force myself
to stick to my original schedules for weekends, and don't have too much homework
to do!

73 de Greg N3ZL


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