[3830] CaQP N6D M/MCntyExp HP

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                    California QSO Party

Call: N6D
Operator(s): AC7ZG K&RF KI7Y N7MQ NE7D WJ7R
Station: N6D

Class: M/MCntyExp HP
QTH: Del Norte Co, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:    35     18
   80:   163    213
   40:   248    442
   20:   395    752
   15:   230      3
   10:     0      0
    6:     0      0
    2:     0      0
--------------------
Total:  1071   1428  Mults = 58  Total Score = 352,002

Club: Willamette Valley DX Club

Comments:

Another fun but extremely cold CAQP from the 5288 foot hill in the back country
of Del Norte County's mountains. 

No power, no water, no flush toilets nor (we wish) hot showers at this QTH --
and a nasty 10.5 mile road with extreme dropoffs and switchbacks that makes it
impossible to drive an RV up to it or to drive at night.  We are grateful for
the existing firetower/cabin and pit toilet.   We're all Honda Generator (gas)
driven (3000i,2000i,1000i) plus one old timer generator on the 160 station.
with special electrical filters and very low electrical generator noise. 

Setup was in clear, cool weather Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning.
The weather rapidly degraded to snow by Friday evening through early Sunday
morning. The CW ops high in the tower nearly froze to death with extremely low
temperatures during the snow -- much lower than the past two years....but they
kept running.

80m was significantly difficult this year with extremely high noise levels S9+,
which we believe were due to extremely low temperature dry snowfall (static
noise caused the CW ops to stop and remove antenna feeds for a while). Our
apologies to many of you that tried to work us on 80m but couldn't be pulled
out of the noise at our QTH. We tried many of you but just couldn't make a go
of it.

We reduced our load this year -- left the Steppir(TM) and Force12 mast at
home...substituting a couple of Superantenna(TM) 3-el Yagis on 15 foot pushup
masts (there is a 3000 foot dropoff just a few feet in front of the antennas,
so mast elevation isn't critical). Somehow the 15m detuned in the high winds
overnight and we could not run 15m when it was open for SSB on Sunday. Perhaps
we could have gotten another 200 or so Q's based upon the CW run on 15m.  That
Superantenna needs either some tape or some lockwashers to prevent it from
unscrewing itself in the wind. The 20m Superantenna played surprisingly well.

DX was excellent this year -- while we hear the FT station before the contest,
they didn't call us ;-).  But EA6AZ did, as well as many dozen other EU, SA,
OC, AS and AF stations. Thanks to all!

Many Mobile stations this year, and many low number (<10) stations called in. 
Lots of QRP stations checked in, but one especially stands out -- a 5W
pedestrian mobile from high in the mountains above Colorado Springs. We
appreciate all the Q's from these individuals.

It really seems to us that interest in the CQP has picked up this year compared
to the last 3 we participated in.

Thanks to all that worked us. We appreciate your Q's.
Thanks again to NCCC for putting on an outstanding contest. 

Best to all
The N6D team
AC7ZG K7RF KI7Y N7MQ NE7D WJ7R


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