[3830] OhQP W1NN Mobile LP

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                    Ohio QSO Party

Call: W1NN
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: W1NN

Class: Mobile LP
QTH: 9 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
   80:  135     72
   40:  199     20
   20:   82     26
   15:            
   10:            
--------------------
Total:  416    118  CW Mults = 60  Ph Mults = 73  Total Score = 126,350

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

We had a beautiful day for the contest this year and I had a very pleasant two
hour drive out to western Ohio where I planned to start the contest.  A week
before the contest, I learned that Hank, N8XX would be operating portable just
a couple of miles away from my starting point, so I decided to stop by and see
him.  Hank and I operated a field day together in 1963 when he was W8CHT and I
was K8HVT (we met because we were both active in handling traffic on the NTS
Buckeye Net)and it was the first time we had seen each other since then.  Hank
has changed!   

This was the fifth or sixth mobile run I've made in the OHQP but it turned out
to be a very frustrating one.  Although everything was working fine in the car
Friday night, once the contest started I couldn't get the 80 meter antenna to
work properly and I spent a huge amount of time trying to fix this problem.  I
use the large Hustler resonators for 80 and 75 and when they are working
properly, the SWR is very low for around 25-30 khz and you can change this
range by simply shortening or lengthening the tip rod.  And most people can
hear you, although it can be difficult to get through phone pileups or hold a
frequentcy on phone.  When something is amiss, you can't find a resonant
frequency and the antenna won't tune up even with an antenna tuner.  The main
causes of such problems are either a poor ground or a poor coax connection, but
it's not always easy to figure out what's wrong in a specific case.  I finally
got the antenna working properly but I lost a lot of operating time and fell
way behind in my route.  So instead of going through 13 counties, I only made
it to 9.  

My overall rate was also hurt by spending a lot of time trying to get something
going on SSB.  But this was deliberate, because to make a good score you really
need a good mult total on both modes.  I spent a lot of time on 20 and 40 SSB
early in the contest but never did get much of a run going.  I normally don't
care for SSB and almost never work SSB-only contests but I enjoy the challenge
of SSB as a mobile and on those few occasions where I have a good run, it is
very rewarding (and good for the score when mults are counted by mode as in the
Ohio QSO Party).  This time my persistence was finally rewarded by a run of
about 55 contacts on 75 meters, allowing me to pick up a lot more phone mults
than I have ever done before, both counties and states.  It looks like I worked
55 counties in total including CW and SSB.  

Overall, conditions were pretty good and activity also seemed great, with at
least one out of state station (N4PN) going well over 400 contacts.  75 was
wall to wall stations.  The Ohio QSO Party is getting better each year.

Hope to be out there on the roads again next year.

73,  Hal W1NN


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