[3830] TxQP W0BH Multi-Op Mobile LP

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Thu Oct 8 21:39:28 EDT 2015


                    Texas QSO Party

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

Class: Multi-Op Mobile LP
QTH: 31 Texas counties
Operating Time (hrs): 17

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:     8     0       
   40:   523    56       
   20:   815   418       
   15:    51     2       
   10:                   
    6:                   
    2:                   
  UHF:                   
----------------------------
Total:  1397   476      0  Mults = 112  Total Score = 608,016

Club: 

Comments:

Score includes 32000 bonus points.

2015 Texas QSO Party by Bob/w0bh

Friday

Ron/ad0dx and I teamed up again for a Mobile Multi-Op run through the Texas
panhandle. This year, my "new" mocca '05 Chevy Astro (70K miles)
replaced my tried and true blue '91 Astro (295K miles) which was becoming more
of a gamble each trip. The new Astro ran great during its Kansas QSO Party
debut, both engine and radio, so we once again added multi-multi operations at
county line stops.

I added switchable filters to both IC7000 radios and moved the second radio to
the back seat for more comfortable indoor operating. Last year I had to stand
outside in the back with the flies, the sun, and the cockleburrs. With the
front radio on 20m, we got the back radio to operate interference free on both
40m and 15m by swapping antennas on the third roof mag mount. With this setup,
the mode that tuned on the rear radio depended on the front radio mode. Near
the end of the run, we figured out that we could also split the CW and SSB
Hustler stacks without interference which will greatly add to our capability
next year. The switches have already arrived!

Ron and I headed off to our overnight stop in Liberal KS and arrived early for
a change (that might be a first for the TQP!). Once in Liberal, I attached and
guyed the antennas, programmed the voice and CW keyers, and taped our Day One
schedule to the dash. Ready to go.

Saturday

The morning weather was great as we left early (another first). We decided to
drive all the way through our first county and start from the
Ochiltree/Hansford line. We got both stations up and running just as the
opening bell rang. Ron quickly worked K5LH on 40m in MLEN as I tweaked some
settings in the back. When I was ready to go, Ron switched to 20m and worked
W4UT for the first of many contacts. My first back seat contact was WA2VYA,
then we both settled in for a nice run. The system worked!

Texas was kind to us this year with light winds and cooler temperatures. One
highlight was going by Morse Junction while Ron was operating Morse code in
Moor(s)e county. I'll have to stop and get that picture sometime! Texas roads
are great and fast unless you get behind a Wide Load truck delivering a
windmill part to one of the many wind farms found in this part of Texas. It
took awhile to get around two of them back to back, but eventually we were back
up to speed. The new Astro likes to drive fast compared to the old one!

This year was definitely less productive than last year. I understand 15m was
in for lots of Texas, but up in the panhandle, 15m Qs were rare even though we
tried 15m from almost every county. 40m was good all day long, but with less
mobiles out there to work, it felt slow. The overall result was lots less Qs
and the comparison statistics (below) are interesting. We ran almost exactly
the same route as last year and operated more time with the second radio, but
made almost 600 less contacts. That's significant.

In the later afternoon, we turned on the A/C in the van. I was driving and all
was well until Ron went to 40m. Every time he keyed up, the Battery light came
on, the voltage gauge on the van would start heading down, and the radio power
booster also showed the drop. We switched back to 20m (and 15m) and the problem
disappeared. After pondering on it for a few miles, we tried again with the A/C
turned off. The problem went away. Not sure if it's RF getting into the van
computer or too much load on the alternator with both A/C and front radio
transmitting. I'll be swapping my Optima battery from the old van to the new
van, so perhaps that will help.

Another time we came off a county line stop and headed out. We'd both been
running SSB from the line. Ron was operating and noticed a higher SWR on 20m
CW. Right antenna, yes. Filter out, yes. 40m CW worked fine. Hmmmmm. Oh yes,
I'd left the 40m SSB resonator on the third mag mount which I knew from testing
would cause a problem on 20m CW. It's an incredible tuning job with 7 antennas
on three mag mounts. Lots of possible combinations and LOTS of interactions. A
quick stop to remove the resonator solved the problem. I can leave the 40m CW
resonator on, but not 40m SSB!

OK, pulling out after removing the resonator, I saw the pickup way back in the
distance but I had plenty of space. As I was going through 70 mph he pulled out
to pass, but I kept speeding up to reach the 75 mph speed limit. He pulled back
behind me as we went up a hill. Over the next few miles in the Texas hill
country, he kept trying to pass but always had to pull back. I finally pulled
over a bit to let him through. As he went by, he heaved an empty beer can at
me. It missed but I could read the brand starting with a "B" as he
sped off at way over 80. I'm also making an educated guess that it was empty.
Ron commented afterwards that it was probably lucky he didn't have the
requisite gun rack in the rear window!

The rest of the day went smoothly. We made our last county with time to spare,
even made a few 80m contacts, and pulled into our hotel as time ran out. This
year we managed to stay on schedule both days. We found out that most
restaurants in Childress close at 9:00pm, but we didn't starve.  We ended the
day with 1138 contacts.

Sunday

Sunday started off with a good breakfast, a beautiful morning, and the decision
to head through our first county to the Hall/Childress line. Once again we
arrived early and even had time to take a few pictures. One of the fun
side-tasks we have is to try to fill county-hunter requests for specific
counties. This year we had two requests, both on Sunday. W5HY/Bob from Texas
had six counties to go in Texas and three were ours, including Hall. SM7ZDI/Vic
needed Donley as one of his last counties in the US. We do listen extra hard for
these calls and it was fun to hear Bob come on with a nice signal on 40m. One
down, three to go.

Sunday always goes quickly, so we were soon in Donley working some DX on 20m
when we tried 15m and found big signals from Europe. Finally! This was good for
Vic and we kept waiting for his call to appear but no luck. Our time ran out at
the line and I quickly swapped out the 15m resonator for the 17m resonator as
planned and gave Vic another call. There was loud QRN on the the band and
nothing heard. Vic later emailed that a few minutes before our scheduled time,
the Russian radar fired up which takes out much of 17m in Europe. It turns out
he didn't have 15m transmit, but he heard us there as well. We couldn't wait
any longer and so continued on, but Ron and I both remarked how impressive it
is to try to work all US counties, particularly from overseas. We did work Bob
in his other two counties on Sunday afternoon. 

Approaching the four county line, our GPS started cutting in and out. We
rebooted the computer several times and it worked for a bit, then it quit
again. We knew where the line was, but for the exact spot we needed the GPS. We
got it running again, found the spot (now very near a wind farm), and settled
in. Runs were good but not crazy like last year and 15m was no longer in, so it
was slow and steady. We'd planned a bit more time this year since we ran out of
time last year, but when quitting time came, we were ready to move on. 

Our last county was Lipscomb, the furthest northeast county in the panhandle.
To get there we had to run back through two of our four counties, so dupes were
common and contacts were slow. Then we hit Lipscomb. Wow. Ron's ears were
smoking as he dug into the pileup. We drove to the Texas/Oklahoma border and
parked at a small rest area with about 20 minutes to go. I jumped in the back,
fired up the rig on 40m and the receiver immediately started cutting in and
out. Transmit and SWR were fine. I kept testing and it kept blanking. Then Ron
said the pileup evaporated and he wasn't working anyone either. It felt like
forever, but we finally realized the 20m filter wasn't inline on the front
radio and Ron's transmitting was desensing my receiver. My transmitting totally
overloaded his receiver. Ron thought we'd blown the front end, but he started
making contacts again and it turned out to be OK. Everyone was waiting for me
on 40m, so a nice run to finish out the party, but the front radio pileup never
came back. Live and learn. We did both this year!

Stats

2014: We operated 17.0 hours, 1933 Qs, 443 unique calls, 61 dupes, 1264 miles.
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.


-------------- 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 
US/VE Worked - 52 - 49 - 52 - 46 states/provinces
TX worked ---- 55 - 68 - 46 - 59 counties
DX worked ---- 08 - 11 - 18 - 17 countries
------------- 112--128--116--122 total mults

---------- 2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012
Day 1 Qs : 1138 - 1423 - 1195 - 1433

Rates (includes dupes)
---------------- 2015--2014--2013--2012
Sat 1400 - 2000 : -85 - 117 - 105 - 121 / hr 
Sat 2000 - 0200 : 105 - 120 - 109 - 119 / hr
Sun 1400 - 0200 : 133 - 192 - 131 - 143 / hr

Total 2015 W0BH/m : 1873 Qs, 31 ctys, 112 mults, 32,000 bonus = 608,016 points
Total 2014 W0BH/m : 2482 Qs, 31 ctys, 128 mults, 34,000 bonus = 882,768 points
Total 2013 W0BH/m : 1955 Qs, 36 ctys, 116 mults, 36,500 bonus = 664,756 points
Total 2012 W0BH/m : 2270 Qs, 35 ctys, 112 mults, 35,000 bonus = 743,176 points

------ Station 1 --------- Station 2 -----
2015 : 1536 / 17.0 hours - 397 / 3.1 hours 
2014 : 2106 / 17.3 hours - 376 / 2.2 hours

County Breakdown (in visited order)

Saturday (526 miles during the QSO party)

01 OCHI 33 Ochiltree
02 HANS 39 Hansford
03 HUTC 28 Hutchinson
04 MOOR 36 Moore
05 SHMN 49 Sherman
06 DALM 48 Dallam
07 HART 45 Hartley
08 OLDH 46 Oldham
09 POTT 52 Potter
10 CARS 45 Carson
11 ARMS 45 Armstrong
12 RAND 44 Randall
13 DSMI 23 Deaf Smith
14 CAST 59 Castro
15 PARM 71 Parmer
16 BAIL 61 Bailey
17 LAMB 59 Lamb
18 SWIS 84 Swisher
19 HALE 100 Hale
20 FLOY 47 Floyd
21 MOTL 35 Motley
22 COTT 46 Cottle
23 CHIL 24 Childress

Sunday (217 miles during the QSO party)

23 CHIL 50 Childress
24 HALL 85 Hall
25 DONL 51 Donley
26 COLW 35 Collingsworth
27 WHEE 125 Wheeler
28 HEMP 132 Hemphill
29 GRAY 109 Gray
30 ROBE 111 Roberts
31 LIPS 56 Lipscomb

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

34: N6MU W4UT
30: N5RZ
29: WA6KHK
26: WA2VYA
25: K5LH NR5M
24: W0GXQ
22: AD8J N4OX
21: K3TW SP9LJD WB5KSD
20: AD4RE AE5GT
19: K4XU KE0G
18: KM6HB KN4Y N8II VE7SL W0EAR WB5BKL
17: K5NA NU1O W5RTA
16: K0HNC K4DJ K7TM N8UM
15: K8JQ
14: N8KIE NA4K W1END
13: LY5A NW0M
12: DL3GA K4ORD K8LS KC9TMH W0UY
11: HA9RE K2ZR N9OF W9JEF WA7JUJ
10: K7QML W0VX WA8CDU
09: 12 ops
08: 7 ops
07: 10 ops
06: 13 ops
05: 13 ops
04: 48 ops
03: 22 ops
02: 105 ops
01: 164 ops
 
Texas mobiles worked (6) - some just travelling along:

09: N4CD
05: N5NA
04: K5GQ
01: K5YAA N5IR WB5LJO

W0BH Award Winners - First Place -- Very Honorable Mention
-----------------------------------------------------------
Most overall Qs ---- N6MU W4UT/34 - N5RZ*/30 ---- WA6KHK/29
Most CW Qs --------- N6MU/34 ------ N5RZ*/30 ---- WA6KHK/27 
Most PH Qs --------- KC9TMH WA7JUJ/11 - W4UT K7QML/10
Most counties ------ N6MU/31 ------ N5RZ*/29 ---- 5 ops/25 

* The first time an in-state station has ever made the list! Nice work, Gator!

Afterward
Just a few comments about the apparently famous logging rule which appears in
all capital letters in the TQP rules. It seems to me the intent of the rule
should be to have one QSO logged in both logs for each county line contact.
Let's assume for the moment that the mobile operator gets to choose what he/she
considers to be the most efficient way of doing this.

The mobile operator decides to say "You're 59 Donley and Hall" or
send "599 DONL/HALL." The home operator responds and presumably logs
something. The mobile operator logs both contacts. Log checking will look for
both counties in the home station's log and reduce the mobile station's score
if any aren't found. It's really up to the mobile station to make sure all the
counties appear there. Operators will change how they operate if their
operating practice results in too many points lost. It's inherently
self-regulating. Enough said.

Special thanks to Chuck/no5w and to NARS for sponsoring the event. Thank you
all for the Texas-style fun.  See you next year!

73, Bob/w0bh and Ron/ad0dx


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