[3830] OkQP W0BH Mobile Assisted LP

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                    Oklahoma QSO Party

Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH

Class: Mobile Assisted LP
QTH: 34 OK counties
Operating Time (hrs): 17.3

Summary:
 Band  CW-Dig Qs  Ph Qs
------------------------
  160:                
   80:       2       0
   40:     262       4
   20:     597     635
   15:     189     130
   10:                
    6:                
------------------------
Total:    1050     769  Mults = 66  Total Score = 309,408

Club: 

Comments:

After a long "non-winter" in Kansas, Lorna/k0why and I were both ready to fire
up the van and run a QSO party. My goal this year was to pick up most of the
remaining south and southeast counties that we hadn't yet run in the OKQP. I
planned a route starting at my dad's farm in Grant county in the north, then
jumped on I-35 and headed south. The route was mostly good highway and fast, so
we had 34 counties on the schedule.

The equipment in the Chevy Astro hasn't changed much from previous QSO parties
and was  mostly in place in the van. When I started checking things out, I
found that a mouse had been inside my Heil noise-cancelling headset case and
chewed through the main cable. That was the only damage and the mouse had moved
on, but I had to swap to an older MFJ headset with less audio gain. Lorna likes
to give out Qs from time to time, and she listens to the Icom 706 audio through
the FM radio. This time, instead of the FM radio, I added an audio booster and
plugged in a speaker which worked really well.

Saturday

After an early farm breakfast, we headed out into a cloudy, not too cool
morning .. my idea of perfect QSO party weather. It's always a challenge to
fight the glare on the computer screen, but no eyestrain this year. John/N6MU
was waiting for me on my posted 40m, frequency and we logged QSO number one.
The first half hour was slow, then the three county line appeared and we were
off. N4PN, K4ZGB, K3TW/QRP and WF2S joined the fray and kept us company
throughout the weekend. The quick chit-chat with the "regulars" is one of my
favorites parts of the QSO party experience, and this year it was even more fun
than usual.

Our route took us through the west side of Oklahoma City. When things slowed
down, I tuned around looking for other OK stations and found WD0GTY in Oklahoma
county. We got steadily closer and passed about a mile from his QTH, so we were
able to work a number of different bands on ground wave. While sitting at a
line south of Oklahoma City, another ham drove by and noticed us parked. Lorna
chatted with him for a bit while I worked down a big CW pileup.

The day continued along smoothly and the 60 minute line stops gave Lorna time
to relax and even do a bit of bird-watching. We were running slightly behind as
we closed in on our last county for the day, but arrived with ten minutes to
spare and lots of eager ops. As the sun went down, we also picked up huge bug
splats (some type of beetle). As the clock ran out, we were 15 minutes from our
overnight stop .. a historic bed & breakfast called the Old Johnson House in
Hugo. When I made the reservation, the proprietor, Mitra, told me she used to
be a ham, and her dad, Chris/W7LMB had just moved in. We really enjoyed our
visit with both of them out on the patio in almost tropical conditions as they
asked about QSO party mobile operations. 

Sunday

After one of the best breakfasts I've ever had, we headed north for Day 2. The
rolling hills were fun driving for Lorna as we approached Coal county. A loud
signal came on from W5KAW/Jerry in Coal county, and we had a nice chat as we
got closer. Jerry really enjoys ragchewing and wasn't aware of the OKQP, but he
was happy to give me a contact. Since everyone needed Coal from me, I told him I
needed to work a few folks and really surprised him by running off a number of
contacts while he listened in and made comments. Afterwards, I suggested that
everyone give him a call as well, and I left him with a nice pileup which he
seemed to enjoy!

Shortly after that, we reached highway 48 which turned us north. As we
approached the intersection, a white car with an HF antenna on the back stopped
at the intersection, then continued rapidly south without seeing us. There was
one driver and the car had a ham license plate but I couldn't read the call. I
had worked Norm/W3DYA/m in Coal about ten minutes before, so I wonder if that's
who we saw ??

Mary/AB7NK emailed me several days before about needing Pontotoc for her last
county in Oklahoma. We worked her on Saturday, but hadn't heard her yet on
Sunday as we crossed into "her" county. With only 21 minutes scheduled in
county, the time went fast. With a few minutes to go, N3RJ spotted us and Mary
appeared. She was our last contact from PON, and gave us a Q in the next county
as well. 

Much of our trip this time was on either interstate or turnpike, so the miles
flew by. As we closed in on our last three-county stop, I was tuning around and
found Connie/K5CM/m there ahead of me! Luckily, there was another three-county
line a few miles north, so we stopped there and called Connie. With each of us
in 3 counties, we could log 9 contacts and did .. great fun! All three counties
had already been visited by us and others, but we had a nice 45 minute run
anyway. 

Afterwards, we drove several miles and found Connie and Pam waiting for us.
I've talked to Connie many time but never met Connie or Pam, so it was fun to
get acquainted in person. We took a few pictures, then went out to eat .. a
great way to end the OKQP!

Stats

We operated 17.3 hours, 1902 combined Qs, 373 unique calls, 9 dupes. Lorna
ended up with 83 contacts in her log.

States not worked : AK SD WY
Canadian mults not worked : LB NB NF NT PE YT
OK worked : 9 counties : ATO CLE COA MUS OKF OKL OKM POT WAG
DX worked : VP2E YV EA F

Six-hour Rates (W0BH only)

1300-1900  119/hour
1900-0200  104/hour
1300-1900  82/hour

County breakdown (in visited order)

Saturday (435 miles)

01 GNT .62 Grant
02 KAY .65 Kay
03 GAR .57 Garfield
04 NOB .62 Noble
05 PAY .54 Payne
06 LOG .88 Logan
07 OKL 119 Oklahoma
08 CAN .54 Canadian
09 KIN .54 Kingfisher
10 CLE .37 Cleveland
11 MCL 106 McClain
12 GRA .56 Grady
13 GRV .51 Garvin
14 MUR .51 Murray
15 CAR 112 Carter
16 STE .39 Stephens
17 JEF .60 Jefferson
18 LOV .52 Love
19 JOH .41 Johnston
20 MAR .53 Marshall
21 BRY .62 Bryan
22 CHO .26 Choctaw

Sunday (259 miles)

22 CHO .13 Choctow
23 PUS .20 Pushmataha
24 ATO .63 Atoka
25 COA .45 Coal
26 PON .24 Pontotoc
27 HUG .37 Hughes
28 PIT .36 Pittsburg
29 MCI .34 McIntosh
30 OKM .19 Okmulgee
31 OKF .22 Okfuskee
32 SEM .18 Seminole
33 POT .49 Pottawatomie
34 LIN .78 Lincoln

Special thanks to the following ops for 5 or (way) more contacts!
 
108 : N6MU
96 : K3TW
93 : N4PN
71 : WF2S
51 : K4ZGB
50 : W4YWX
45 : W4NT
39 : WA6KHK
37 : W4UT
36 : W6USN
35 : N4JF
33 : KS4X
32 : K4MIA
22 : YV5OIE
24 : W4UCZ
25 : N5XG
20 : W4IHI
18 : KI0I
17 : KO1U W0PAN
15 : K4AMC W2RR WB2ABD
14 : AC5O W8CAG W8WVU
13 : K0HNC N0CKC
12 : AD4RE K0PC K5CM/M N9WKW
10 : K9NW W0ZQ
09 : K7ZYV K9EN KD8HA N2CQ 
08 : K1TKL KM6HB N1NN N3RJ N8NA VE1WT 
07 : K5KDG K8QWY N4CD WW9DX 
06 : K4AMA N3KR NN6CH W4CUE W4SIG WD0GTY
05 : K2MF N4IJ N9WL VA3GKO VE5KS W4MYA W4SAA W7KQZ W9SDX WA5TRX

OK Mobiles worked: K5CM/m (12), W3DYA/m (1)

Consistently loudest signal: N4PN WF2S (K3TW/qrp)

W0BH Award Winners

----------------- First Place -------- Very Honorable Mention--
Most overall Qs - N6MU/108 --------- K3TW/96 --------- N4PN/93
Most CW Qs ------ N4PN/66 ---------- N6MU/60 --------- K3TW/56
Most PH Qs ------ N6MU/48 ---------- K3TW/40 --------- WF2S/31
Most counties --- N6MU/34 K3TW/34 -- N4PN/33
---------------------------------------------------------------

Lorna and I drove a total of 1066 miles from Kansas round trip and the hilly
green of southeastern Oklahoma was quite a change from the flat and dusty
Panhandle. Thanks to Connie (K5CM) and Pam (N5KW) for coordinating the event,
Gene (W5LE) for the web site, the OKDXA for sponsoring the OQP, and of course
the mobiles and Oklahoma base stations for putting  all 77 counties out there
for N6MU to collect .. congrats on the Sweep, John!

The Kansas QSO Party is scheduled for the last weekend in August. It will be
hard to top our Sesquicentennial QSO Party in 2011, but we're going to give it
a try. Come join us!

73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why


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