[3830] OkQP NO5W Rover-Multi-Xmtr LP
webform at b41h.net
webform at b41h.net
Tue Mar 24 08:46:38 PDT 2009
Oklahoma QSO Party
Call: NO5W
Operator(s): KU5B, W5ZL, NO5W
Station: NO5W
Class: Rover-Multi-Xmtr LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs
------------------------
160:
80: 10 0
40: 1008 3
20: 693 46
15:
10:
------------------------
Total: 1711 49 Mults = 51 Total Score = 266,781
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Equipment:
Vehicle: 2002 Nissan Pathfinder
Power Supply: 75AHr AGM Battery with Super Power Gate charging system
Computers: Dell Laptops running XP
Logging Software: CQ/X de NO5W version 1.7.6
Mapping Program: Streets & Trips 2007
Station 1: K3, HI-Q 4/80 antenna with MFJ 1924 controller, Navigator USB I/F,
W3NQN bandpass filters, Garmin 18-PC DLX GPS
Station 2: IC-7000, microHam CWKeyer USB I/F, Little Tarheel II antenna with
MFJ 1924 controller, W3NQN bandpass filters, Pharos GPS from Streets and Trips
After all the fun the three of us had in the 2008 OK QP there was little doubt
that we would do it again in 2009. So once again we put two guys (NO5W & W5ZL)
who send 57 checks in Sweepstakes and a barely twenty-something fellow (KU5B)
who sends an 02 check into a Pathfinder and away we went on a 950 mile route
around 38 Oklahoma counties, mostly west of I-35 on Saturday and west and east
of I-35 on Sunday.
The route went well as we hit all but 2 of our planned 40 counties and would
have made them all except that we had to take what turned into a 45 mile detour
late on Saturday to get from Woods to Alfalfa county where the short cut road
(SR45) we planned to take was closed. The detour would have been only 19 miles
but we realized, after about 15 miles up US281 that we had missed the turn onto
SR45 so we turned around and headed back to the missed turn to arrive there only
to find that the road was closed. So it was back up the 15 miles on US281 and on
to Alva and then across US64. By the time we got to the Kay-Noble decision point
at the intersection of US64 and US60 north of Enid it was obvious we wouldn't
have time for Kay and Noble so we headed on down to Enid arriving about 15
minutes before the Saturday closing bell and sat in the hotel parking lot to
work out the remaining minutes. Enid was a good stopping point with lots of
eating places which we found and managed to catch the last half of the
Texas-Duke basketball game at the bar at Chili's. On Sunday the route went
almost like clockwork with us making our last Sunday county (Love) with about
30 minutes to go, which was ideal.
Not content to leave well enough alone we decided to try some new things this
year including testing the K3 operated remotely as a mobile QSO party radio,
and testing the Little Tarheel antenna for possible use as part of a
“fly-away kit†for some fly-in mobile contesting. Another new item was the
use of a microHam CWKeyer to reduce the number of devices needed in the already
cluttered rear seat station. All of the above worked fine except that we did
have a fair share of RFI problems particularly with station 2 in the rear seat.
Even though we had arrived in Ardmore, our starting point, mid afternoon Friday
in time to do some testing which appeared to portend success, RFI gremlins
suddenly appeared Saturday morning just seemingly on cue from the starting
bell, and we had to take immediate action – ferrites, recabling, etc., to
regain control of the position 2 system. Well up the road around mid-day we
found and neutralized the main culprit . It turns out we had bad SWR on the
HI-Q antenna that had been masked by touching up the tuning using the K3
auto-tuner. After retuning the antenna without the ATU the RFI problems were
significantly reduced although we continued to have occasional problems in that
area. To control the K3 from the front passenger seat, with the K3 tucked away
in the rear of the vehicle, we used the K3 interface provided by CQ/X. This
worked fairly well but it was agreed in the post-contest discussion that a
multi-purpose tuning knob such as the Shuttle Pro would be a welcome addition
to that interface.
Conditions were very poor on Saturday until around 2100 when they picked up
significantly. In addition, it was tough to find a spot on 20 due to the
concurrent running of the RDXC and the Virginia QSO Party and on 40 we were
plagued by RTTY QRM for a good part of the day. Even though we finished the day
with some good rates we were concerned that we would be well behind the previous
year's totals. Sunday was an entirely different story with the RDXC over, very
little RTTY QRM and signals actually above the noise floor in most counties –
Bryan county being an exception due to terrible line noise especially on 40.
However, as it turned out we made almost as many QSOs in half the time on
Sunday that we did on Saturday. Apologies to stations we could hear in there
calling us over and over again, but we just couldn’t pull you out. They
haven’t yet perfected a mobile antenna that hears as well as it talks. It was
probably just as frustrating for you as it was for us (only WE were going deaf
trying to pull you out of the mud through the QRN and interstation
interference. Here's some county-by-county statistics.
The following counties were activated with indicated number of QSOs and where
the time period of the QSO party has been divided into three six hour periods
Period 1 = 1300-1900 Sat, Period 2 = 1900-0100 Sat/Sun, Period 3 = 1300-1900
Sunday:
County QSOs TenMinRate Period* MinsInCty
Beckham 97 252 2 43
Marshall 94 186 3 45
Garfield 82 252 2 65
Canadian 79 240 3 49
Pottawatomie 76 288 3 38
Woods 68 84 2 47
Carter 9/58 36 1/3 18/20
Oklahoma 66 252 3 31
Love 64 264 3 28
Greer 63 96 2 35
Kingfisher 63 162 3 40
Blaine 60 192 3 29
Alfalfa 59 222 2 32
Harmon 59 270 1 19
Murray 57 252 3 23
Garvin 53 276 3 15
Custer 53 222 2 30
Kiowa 52 162 1 28
Dewey 50 198 2 25
Jackson 47 180 1 31
Cleveland 46 222 3 15
Grant 45 216 2 17
Washita 41 210 2 12
Roger Mills 40 210 2 12
Pontotoc 38 216 3 11
Comanche 34 102 1 41
Grady 34 108 1 26
Tillman 32 126 1 40
Cotton 31 156 1 20
Major 27 24 2 26
Stephens 25 36 1 32
Woodward 25 138 2 14
McClain 21 126 3 4
Bryan 18 108 3 7
Jefferson 16 24 1 30
Johnston 14 84 3 5
Caddo 12 66 1 13
The following hourly rates in the three periods clearly indicate the
improvement in conditions and/or participation as the contest progressed
through the three periods
Period 1 Rate = (351/298)*60 = 71/hr
Period 2 Rate = (650/360)*60 = 108/hr
Period 3 Rate = (807/360)*60 = 134/hr
Of course none of the rates and QSO totals would be possible without those who
took time to participate and those who commit a considerable amount of time to
organizing and running the OK QP. Thanks to the following frequent callers for
contributing more than half the QSOs (numbers have not been adjusted for
dupes):
N2CU(60), N6MU(58), WB8JUI(46), NT2A(44, KS5A(42), K9EU(42), N4IG(41),
W7GVE(39), KN4Y(37), N9FC(37), N2WN(32), WA7JHQ(31), NU0Q(30), WB2ABD(30),
NT5O(29), W5ESE(29), K9NW(25), NN8L(24), KB9OWD(23), KG7E(23), AD1C(21),
N9WKW(20), K9EN(20), KO1U(20), WA3GNW(20), K8QWY(19), W5MF(19), KY0E(18),
VE3CRU(18) K0LG(18).
And thanks to K5YAA and the OKDXA for another great running of the OK QP.
In summary, we tried some new things, got burned a bit by RFI (not literally),
but managed to come close to our 2008 pace due to excellent conditions and
participation on Sunday.
See you next time. If all goes as planned you'll see us again in the 2010
running of the OKQP. In the meantime there are rumors that one of us will be an
active mobile in 7QP and another of us in the FQP and of course all of us in the
2009 TXQP.
73 and thanks again for the QSOs,
Chuck/NO5W
Gary/W5ZL
Colin/KU5B
KU5B Comments:
I once again had a great time with Chuck and Gary this weekend. We’d planned
for many months prior and spent an entire Saturday getting the mobile ready for
action. Conditions were not great on Saturday and the other contests, especially
RDXC, really made things tough for us. After lunch on Saturday, things did get a
bit better. Sunday turned out to be the saving day and came complete with some
very hot 40m action. 20m was exponentially better in the afternoon and yielded
some pretty high rate hours. Our mult total is down as compared to last
year’s total but I think this may be a result of the conditions (or lack
thereof) and other contests. One noticeable lack of mults was from the VE’s.
I only recall working MB and ON. Thanks to everyone for following us around; I
hope y’all had as much fun as we did. Great job by the other mobiles and
fixed stations as well; being able to cover the entire state for the out of
state guys makes the trip worthwhile. And finally, many thanks to both Chuck
and Gary for working hard at getting the mobile running and providing endless
hours of entertainment. I’m already looking forward to next year.
W5ZL Comments:
Couldn’t be two nicer guys to make such a trip – we laughed our way across
Oklahoma. And wow, you have to get up close and personal with Chuck’s
phenomenal software, CQ/X, to appreciate what he’s accomplished. This is
genius stuff (I hope he doesn’t edit these comments out). The new K3 remote
GUI is very cool indeed. That is of particular interest to me as K5OT and I are
planning a fly-in assault on the 7QP in early May. We’re probably nuts to try
this in a rental vehicle with all the attendant setup issues, but life is too
short to do easy stuff. We’ll have a similar setup to the NO5W OkieMobile –
my IC-7000 and Larry’s K3, two Little Tarheel II antennas, and all the
associated trappings to run a M/2 rover starting out in Salt Lake City, then up
through Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming before rolling back into SLC. See you from
7-Land!
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