[3830] NAQP CW N7ZG M/2 LP

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                    North American QSO Party, CW - January

Call: N7ZG
Operator(s): N7ZG
Station: N7ZG

Class: M/2 LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 11:45

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   23     8
   80:   87    46
   40:  379    57
   20:  377    53
   15:  437    57
   10:  288    42
-------------------
Total: 1591   263  Total Score = 418,433

Club: Western Washington DX Club

Team: 

Comments:

With Guy/N7ZG building his new station out on Harstine over the past couple
years, we haven't had much opportunity to do any N7ZG/N7WA multi-ops over the
last couple years. This NAQP, we decided to kick the tires and give it a spin.

Having no internet, I thought it would be nice as a multi to have access to
some spots as you... (and maybe the Seahawks) ...don't want to leave any points
on the field. Towards that end, I had been playing with a Softrock Ensemble II
and the CW Skimmer at home. We hooked that up for what little it could give us.
Otherwise it was a nice setup up a couple K3's and stacks on 10, 15, and 20. A 4
element yagi on 40, an inverted Vee for 80, and a vertical on 160M rounded
things up. The 80M vee looked iffy before the test but it looked like the K3
tuner could handle it.

Having never done a NAQP M/2, we set a ridiculous goal of 2400 Q's and 300
mults - Ha! Of course, we knew neither was in the realm of possibility but a
team has to have a stretch goal <grin>.

We started out on 20 and 15, and the skimmer was on 10 watching for the band to
open up. Rates were good and 20 and 15 but it was evident within 30 minutes that
we needed to be on 10M. The 20M station moved over to 10M to catch as much
action as possible before it died. 15M was gangbusters and ended up being the
best band overall. 10M finally died around 2PM local and that station moved
back to 20. 15M stayed active until about 3PM local time before moving to 40
which started out slow but picked up within the hour. 20M petered out around
6PM local was and moved to 80M. 

It soon became evident that the problem on 80 was a bit more than just a tuning
problem. We would set the tuner and work a couple Q's and then the SWR and power
would go all whacked out. We could press the tuner button a few times and get it
back just to repeat the sequence. Unfortunately, it happened a many times in
mid-Q and it probably looked like we just went away or became really hard to
copy. Sorry everyone. Looking back, it could be the connection up at the apex
of the 80 inverted Vee. As such, our efforts on 80M were pretty frustrated.
160M didn't do much either. Seemed pretty noisy and considering where we were
(pretty rural), that seemed odd.

In summary, 10M-40M were a blast - 3 hours in, we had 600 Q's. By the time we
were 8 hours in, we were just a tad over 1300. Then we hit the brick walls of
80M, then 160M. These will take some work to resolve. The skimmer did find us a
few mults despite only being able to decode signals when were weren't
transmitting. We practiced passing stations back and forth but the success rate
was rather mediocre. The skimmer provided a few mults but it would be nice to
have a method of looking at all bands automatically rather than having to
choose and manually set one band at a time.

It was fun putting Guy's station through the paces. Thanks for all the Q's. Now
we have some realistic goals to beat next time.


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