[3830] WiQP WI9WI/M SO Mobile LP

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                    Wisconsin QSO Party

Call: WI9WI/M
Operator(s): WI9WI
Station: WI9WI/M

Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: 7 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 7

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:    0     0
   80:    2     0
   40:  358     0
   20:   62     0
   15:    0     0
   10:    0     0
    6:    0     0
    2:    0     0
  UHF:    0     0
--------------------
Total:  422     0  Mults = 57  Total Score = 75,662.0

Club: Four Lakes ARC

Comments:

This was my eighteenth consecutive year of operating mobile in the WIQP. After
spending many years operating in the northern tier of counties near our cabin
in Sawyer County I was bored with doing the same route over and over with minor
variations. I decided a few years ago to try to work the WIQP from every county
in WI as a solo mobile op. The only assistance I've had has been from my dogs.
After this year I am up to 37 with 35 to go.

I started near the tricounty intersection of WSR, GRL and MRQ. I got out of
Madison a bit late since I usually play hockey on Sunday morning and didn't
want to skip it. I had checked out all the gear and antennas  on Friday. I got
to my first site in MRQ about 15 minutes before the opening bell. I was all set
up about 2 minutes after the gong went off. My first CQ showed a high SWR on the
BugCatcher on 40. It was perfect on Friday, 1.1:1 at7070. I got back out of the
car and started troubleshooting. It seemed I had a bad coax connector. I
changed the coax, and tightened a couple of bolts that grounded the antenna
mount to the car fame. Voila, back in business. But it cost me about 20
minutes. Forty was great. I made 51 QSOs in 34 minutes. Just before moving to
WSR county my K3 started showing "LOW BATTERY" How can this be ? I run the rig,
keyer and computer through a RigRunner from a deep cycle RV battery located in
the rear of the car and I had charged it and put it on trickle charge the
previous day. It had checked out fine. But the V was going down to 10 V on
keying. I cut back the power to 50 watts and that helped for a bit. By the time
I moved to the GRL county it was showing low again so I cut back to 25 watts.
This is the third time I have had major battery issues in the WIQP. One year it
cost me all but a couple of hours of the contest. Next step is a glassmat
battery. After finishing in GRL, I connected the power cable directly to the
car battery and started on my way to the 4 corner intersection of
SHA/WAP/MAR/POR. The car is a Suburu Outback which is very quiet on the
ignition noise front with the engine running. I fortunately had a wrench which
fit the bolts on the car battery, otherwise I would have had to stop at Lowes
at Stevens Point to get one. This however cost me at least 15 more minutes, as
well as another 10 or so minutes when I couldn't get the car hood to latch
properly. I was considering going back to Madison by this time. My next QSO in
SHA was 2 hrs and 9 minutes after stopping operating in GRL. I don't operate
while moving. This is totally lost time. I need to rig something up so I can
operate phone and record my QSOs like W0ZQ does. Fortunately my next 4 counties
were uneventful with quick moves between SHA, WAP, MAR and POR. After 2 or 3
minutes of unproductive CQing just at the end I quit a couple of minutes early,
packed up and arrived home in Madison about 2230 local.

Some stats
County  Time  QSOs
MRQ     34 m  51
WSR     21    27
GRL     32    65
SHA     48    81
WAP     25    58
MAR     37    73
PORT    38    72

Forty was obviously the money band. All QSOs were CQing CW. I didn't operate on
80 much because in spite of checking out well on Friday the antenna refused to
load properly on Sunday and I didn't want to waste time figuring out why with
40 so good. I did no S&P.

Gear: K-3, BugCatcher on 80/40, Hustler on 20, Netbook computer with WriteLog,
Microham keyer/interface.

I spent 2 hrs and 9 minutes moving between the two main operating areas.
I spent 12 minutes moving between the counties in the first area, and 20
minutes in the second area.

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, especially to all the Minnesota stations.

See you next year from a few new counties.

73

Jim
WI9wI


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