[3830] MnQP NE9U Mobile/Portable LP

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                    Minnesota QSO Party

Call: NE9U
Operator(s): NE9U
Station: NE9U

Class: Mobile/Portable LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
 Band  CW-RTTY Qs  Ph Qs
-------------------------
  160:                
   80:     303        
   40:     393        
   20:     108        
   15:                
   10:                
    6:                
    2:                
-------------------------
Total:     804       0  Mults = 68  Total Score = 109,208

Club: Badger Contesters

Comments:

Well, the contest can be broken down into 2 halfs for us.  Before and after our
antenna fell of the Jeep!  :-)))

Like everyone has said, things started off gangbusters with the first 5 hours
all over 100+ qso's per hour.  We had started the day with a small problem with
our SWR that ended up being an intermittent PL259.  But as long as the coax was
bent in the right position it gave us no grief.


Then in the middle of hour 6 I noticed the SWR was sky high and no bending of
the coax at the PL259 had any effect.  Art stopped the Jeep and we got out to
check things out.  Our antenna was dangling by the nylon guy straps that we use
to stabilize it.  The bolt that holds the ball together had come out and it
basically fell apart.  Well, we tried cobbling it back together with electical
tape and string but couldnt get the SWR to dip anywhere.  On top of that, our
once near quiet installation now was a solid s5-s7 static.  We lost about 30
minutes of operating time.  The built in tuner on the TS850 allowed us to
continue on and I am amazed it worked as well as it did.  I'm not sure what
kind of a signal we were putting out, but our rates dropped to 40 for hour 6
and 60-70 for the rest of the contest (except for the last hour where we
actually did 99.....i bet others had 130-140 that last hour???)

As usual, it proves how important antennas are!

Oh I almost forgot....  After we cobbled the antenna back together and I was
trying to get things to tune up via the tuner (which i normally never use), I
smelt that nice crispy smoke smell you all probably know.  I thought maybe the
tuner was overheating.  But what was weird is i lost one half of the audio from
the headphones jack.  Why would that happen!???  Just a bad coincidence?  So for
the last 4 1/2 hours, I had to listen to noisy signals through one side of my
headphones.  Good ole Murphy.

Art is ordering new parts in the morning and we will have a totally new
installation for WQP if we can participate.  Unfortunately, the U of Minn (my
son KB9TTO) and the techical college my wife teaches at both start spring break
that weekend, so we may be in warmer parts instead of radio contesting on
sunday.  Thats still to be determined.

Congrats to all the great mobile scores.  Boy are things gonna fly when we
totally get 20 meters back!

Scott  NE9U and Art N9BCA


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