[3830] TxQP W0BH Multi-Op Mobile LP

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                    Texas QSO Party

Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH AD0DX
Station: W0BH

Class: Multi-Op Mobile LP
QTH: 31 TX counties
Operating Time (hrs): 17.3

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:     4     0       
   40:   135    68       
   20:   996   629       
   15:   531   118       
   10:     1     0       
    6:                   
    2:                   
  UHF:                   
----------------------------
Total:  1667   815      0  Mults = 128  Total Score = 882,768

Club: 

Comments:

Score includes 34,000 county activation and mobile bonus points.

2014 Texas QSO Party by Bob/w0bh

Friday

Ron/ad0dx enjoys the TQP as much as I do, so we decided to team up once again
for a Mobile Multi-Op effort through the Texas panhandle. Ron drove down to
Hesston from Kansas City on Friday afternoon.  When he arrived, we spent some
time testing out the radio setup before we left.

This year, we decided to try multi/multi operations at county line stops. To
supplement the IC-706MkIIG, I added an IC-7000 to the back of the Astro van. In
my experience, there are two essential "extras" to mobile operations.
One is a DC-DC converter for each computer to totally eliminate the noise
problems inverters cause.  The second is a power booster.  When we decided to
go multi-multi, I realized I only had one for the primary radio, so I placed a
last minute order on Monday with TG Electronics for the N8XJK Super Booster,
and Tim really came through for me with a just-in-time delivery. The
power-hungry IC-7000 really appreciated it all weekend long.

I run a SSB stack and a CW stack of Hustler verticals on triple mag mounts
which cover 40-10. After trying several combinations and getting lots of
interference during multi-operations, I finally put a 15m resonator on the
third mag-mount I normally use for 80m. After adding band-pass filters on both
radios, we could run 20 CW and SSB on the 706 and 15 CW and SSB on the 7000
with full output and zero interference, so we said "good enough for this
year," loaded up, and headed out to Liberal, KS, and our overnight stop. 
We made it in good time without running through storms or driving over a dead
deer (like last year). At the hotel, I put on the antennas, programmed the CW
and voice keyers, then called it a (relatively) early night.

Saturday

Saturday started with perfect weather, cool and sunny. Texas seemed unusually
green thanks to a fair amount of rain the previous week. After a good
breakfast, Ron and I headed south on a 45 minute drive through the Oklahoma
panhandle to the Texas border. As start time rolled around, Ron worked K5GE on
40m in GUAD (our first of many) after several minutes of CQing. We worked a
number of Texas mobiles on 40m right at the start, but the action didn't really
pick up until we switched to 20 and 15. DX conditions this year were really
poor, but the 20m short skip to other Texas stations helped make up some of the
lost mults.

Since the first two counties were short, I planned a 10 minute stop at the
Ochiltree / Hansford county line. With Ron working CW at the stop, I went to
the back and connected up the 7000. Murphy tried to help, but I finally got
everything working just as we were scheduled to leave. I decided that keeping
on schedule was more important and I didn't want to interrupt Ron to add the
filter (at the moment a manual operation), so we postponed the second radio
debut until the next stop and headed down the road. 

After some nice runs, we arrived at the Dallam / Sherman county line.  Dallam
is the furthest northwest county in the Texas panhandle, so it always feels
like a "rare" county when we arrive. After parking on the line and
connecting the 20m filter, Ron had an immediate pileup. I headed to the back of
the van and was on the air on 15m a few minutes later.  Yes, it worked .. two
simultaneous CW pileups, and zero interference! Standing at the back of the van
with the sun out, I also realized I hadn't brought any sunscreen. With careful
parking and sun shades to protect both computer screens (and me if I ducked
down), that turned out not to be a problem. Unfortunately, the cattle trucks
that went by were hard to ignore in more ways than one, and the flies seemed
very interested in amateur radio!

The wind started to pick up which helped with the flies but raised some dust
clouds.  It was nothing close to a dust storm, but created low visibilities for
short periods from time to time. Continuing along, we improvised a rest and gas
stop, then caught I-40 east through Amarillo. I always wave at the freeway
underpass where we got stuck a number years ago and continued operating the TQP
from the back of a flatbed tow truck. It's a quick exit off to the Carson /
Armstrong line and another great multi-multi run. This time we had 40 minutes
and were still going strong when it was time to leave.

Our next line I knew was dicey. Three counties, Parmer, Castro, and Deaf Smith
(how's that for a county name?) come together on some less than well-maintained
covered wagon trails. The first attempt to get there was a non-starter. Getting
stuck was a certainty. Five minutes later and coming at it from another angle,
I stopped in front of a "dry" low spot and considered. If I could
just make it across.  OK, let's try. Luckily I didn't take a run at it because
the front wheels sunk in almost immediately and stopped with the rear wheels
still on some kind of base. After rocking back and forth four or five times, we
finally backed out. I should say I did, because Ron just kept pounding out the
Qs!  Lesson-learned. We settled for a two-county line stop instead and had
another nice multi-multi run. Sometime during the run, a tumbleweed blew into
the back of the van!

The rest of the day went smoothly, almost too smoothly given past experiences.
The sun went down as we took an easy drive to our guest house, and we pulled
into Paducah just as the QSO party ended. Our guest house, a converted funeral
parlor, was empty except for us (we hoped). I spent awhile trying to make 40m
work from the back with no success. Remind me to never again leave my antenna
analyzer at home. After another few minutes combining and reloading logs, we
ended a very satisfying day with 1424 contacts. 

Sunday

Sunday morning was partly cloudy and a perfect morning temperature. There's a
"local"  restaurant next door which filled us up, then off we went
with a quick stop at the gas station to try finding a clip which had come off
our sunscreen. No luck and I also managed to lose another sunscreen and break a
third one (don't ask!). Both the missing sunscreen and the missing clip turned
up in the van during cleanup back in Kansas, debunking the rumors of a
tag-along ghost from the guest house.

As usual, Sunday activity started out good and proceeded towards fantastic. Ron
and I had been looking forward to the four-county line stop since we started. We
had multi-multi working great, so we just had to get there. We both remember
from last year (and have on video), the stop as being out in the middle of
nowhere with nothing around. As we approached from the east, we started seeing
wind turbines, and as we got to the actual line, we saw big power lines and a
power substation just a stone's throw away. That's called a year of progress, I
guess. With great fears of power line noise, we set up for multi-multi and gave
it a try. Surprisingly, no noise on either 20 or 15, but a late QSY to 40 was a
no-go.

And was the wait worth it?  Yup :-)  You all were amazing as you helped us work
through the two pileups. I worked 15m CW from the back. It slowed down first, so
I went to phone. Once Ron finished 20m CW, we switched places and I worked 20
SSB from the front and Ron got to experience SSB from the back!  Since we were
logging with two unconnected computers and we'd run through two of the four
counties already, I didn't have an easy way from the back to check which
counties you needed.  Besides frequency control on the way in, my solution was
to give exchanges to everyone for all four counties. We ended up with 90 dupes,
but at least that way no one missed a county.  I'm sure not everyone logged the
unneeded counties, but everyone at least acknowledged them. There's nothing
more fun for me in ham radio than working you all from a four-county line in a
great QSO party!

And therein lies the problem. The pileup went on and on and we kept delaying
our start to Lipscomb, our last county in which we were the only operators. My
GPS said 45 minute to Lipscomb and our last contact from the line was at 1912.
I drove the Astro (with over 292,000 miles on it), pretty hard over the great
Texas roads to try and make at least a few contacts from there.  Several towns
slowed us down. We worked mostly phone while driving along and told everyone
we'd work LIPS on 20m CW. The race to LIPS ended at 1956 with an instant
pileup.  Ron had the honors as we both dug out calls, and he worked 12 contacts
before the closing bell. Sorry we didn't get there sooner. On the four and a
half hour drive home, Ron and I brainstormed some route tweaks which should
help for next year. Try and keep us away!

Stats

2014: We operated 17.3 hours, 2572 Qs, 481 unique calls, 90 dupes, 1280 miles.

2013: We operated 17.0 hours, 1955 Qs, 421 unique calls, 12 dupes, 1375 miles.

2012: We operated 17.7 hours, 2270 Qs, 417 unique calls, 32 dupes, 1423 miles.


-------------- 14 - 13 - 12 
US/VE Worked - 49 - 52 - 46 states/provinces
TX worked ---- 68 - 46 - 59 counties
DX worked ---- 11 - 18 - 17 countries
------------- 128--116--122 total mults

---------- 2014 - 2013 - 2012
Day 1 Qs : 1423 - 1195 - 1433

Rates (includes dupes)
---------------- 2014 - 2013 - 2012
Sat 1400 - 2000 : 117 - 105 - 121 / hr 
Sat 2000 - 0200 : 120 - 109 - 119 / hr
Sun 1400 - 0200 : 192 - 131 - 143 / hr

Total 2014 W0BH/m : 2482 Qs, 128 mults, 34,000 bonus = 882,768 points
Total 2013 W0BH/m : 1955 Qs, 116 mults, 36,500 bonus = 664,756 points
Total 2012 W0BH/m : 2270 Qs, 112 mults, 35,000 bonus = 743,176 points

Total 2014 Station 1 Qs: 2106 in 17.3 hours
Total 2014 Station 2 Qs: 376 in 2.2 hours

County Breakdown (in visited order)

Saturday (495 miles during the QSO party)

01 OCHI 35 -- Ochiltree
02 HANS 55 -- Hansford
03 HUTC 35 -- Hutchinson
04 MOOR 54 -- Moore
05 SHMN 79 -- Sherman
06 DALM 67 -- Dallam
07 HART 53 -- Hartley
08 OLDH 52 -- Oldham
09 POTT 83 -- Potter
10 CARS 81 -- Carson
11 ARMS 81 -- Armstrong
12 RAND 62 -- Randall
13 DSMI 51 -- Deaf Smith
14 PARM 118 - Parmer
15 CAST 106 - Castro
16 BAIL 36 -- Bailey
17 LAMB 60 -- Lamb
18 SWIS 91 -- Swisher
19 HALE 81 -- Hale
20 FLOY 57 -- Floyd
21 MOTL 54 -- Motley
22 COTT 18 -- Cottle

Sunday (221 miles during the QSO party)

22 COTT 34 -- Cottle (again)
23 CHIL 74 -- Childress
24 HALL 98 -- Hall
25 DONL 78 -- Donley
26 COLW 54 -- Collingsworth
27 WHEE 184 - Wheeler
28 HEMP 210 - Hemphill
29 GRAY 160 - Gray
30 ROBE 169 - Roberts
31 LIPS 12 -- Lipscomb

Special thanks to the following ops for 10 or (way) more contacts:

63: NT2A (Gene wasn't loud, but he was always there.)
54: N6MU (John once again worked us in all 31 of our counties!)
51: N4PN (Paul is always loud and consistent!)
43: K3TW WA3HAE WA6KHK (I think Tom/k3tw was QRP!)
37: N1LN
36: K4BAI
32: K2DSW
30: N3RM
29: N4JT
28: KQ3F OM2VL
27: NU0Q
24: SP9LJD WB0PYF
23: W4YWX
22: KI0I W1END W7GF
21: KC3X
20: AD8J
19: AE5GT KN4Y N9QS
18: K2RP KS5H N3KR VE7CV W1DWA W4UT
17: K7REL W2CVW
16: AC4VR KS4X N5MLP W4YDY
15: K4DJ N2JNE N8OT NM5G/M W3BBO
14: K2ZR K5GE N3RJ W8KNO WB0CFF
13: KC0ZVN
12: K7DTB KE0G VE3KP W7GDK
11: K5KS K5LH N4UC N6PDB N8OYY W4NT
10: DL5ME K4AMC K4CMS K4MF K4XI K5NA K6RB K9GDF KE6FQC KN5S WA4WKL WA9OEC
09: 10 ops
08: 13 ops
07: 12 ops
06: 12 ops
05: 16 ops
04: 58 ops
03: 22 ops8:27 PM 10/12/2014
02: 109 ops
01: 159 ops
 
Texas mobiles worked (17) - some just travelling along:
15: NM5G
07: N4CD
06: WB5HJV
05: KK5LO
04: W0GXQ
03: W5CT NW5Q NA5F
02: KE5LQ NO5W NS5J
01: AD5KA KB5KEW KS5A W2OZ WB0TEV WC5D

W0BH Award Winners - First Place -- Very Honorable Mention
-----------------------------------------------------------
Most overall Qs ---- NT2A/63 ------ N6MU/54 ---- N4PN/51
Most CW Qs --------- N6MU/54 ------ NT2A/51 ---- N4PN/35 
Most PH Qs --------- N4PN K3TW N5MLP each 16
Most counties ------ N6MU/31 ------ NT2A/31 ---- N4PN/27 

Afterwards

Special thanks to Chuck/no5w and Keith/nm5g for coordinating the TQP. Thanks to
NARS for sponsoring the event and thank you all for once again making the TQP
one of our very favorite operating events.  See you next year!

73, Bob/w0bh and Ron/ad0dx


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