[3830] WiQP WI9WI SO Mobile LP

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                    Wisconsin QSO Party - 2020

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

Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: 5 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  CW-Dig Qs  Ph Qs
------------------------
  160:      0       0
   80:    100       0
   40:    137       0
   20:     24       0
   15:      0       0
   10:      0       0
    6:      0       0
    2:      0       0
  UHF:      0       0
------------------------
Total:    261       0  Mults = 50  Total Score = 42,433.0

Club: Four Lakes ARC

Comments:

My major goal this year was to complete my very long term goal of operating the
WIQP solo mobile (no driver) from all 72 Wisconsin counties. This was a project
that actually started in the 1980s when I mostly operated from home in Madison
or from our cabin in Sawyer County. On a couple of occasions I left the cabin
early and made a few mobile QSOs on the way home, mainly in RUS, CHI and EAU. In
1994 I decided to do something different and started running a few northern
counties. A few years later I got tired of doing the same counties over and over
and decided to go for them all. So this year I finally completed what amounted
to an over 30 year project. The WIQP is only 7 hours long and I discovered early
on that I didn't feel safe operating and driving at the same time. So a lot of
my time has been spent moving between counties without making QSOs. This year I
left home about 0900 local and drove up to MRN. Over the next 7 hours I ran MRN,
OCO, MEN (quite rare), OUT and WIN to finish them all off. Total actual
operating time was 03:24, with the remaining 03:26 spent driving and fixing
problems. I got home at 2220 local, so of the 13 plus hours on the road, only a
bit over 3 hours was spent actually operating.

Almost every year I've done this there have been problems of some sort or
another, some minor, and some major. They have varied from battery failure, to
rig failure, to RF in the computer, to antenna problems, to you name it. This
year the main ones were RF into the computer causing lockups and high receive
noise. I spent much of the first hour in MRN trying to fix them. My first QSO
was with Laci OM2VL. The bands were long. I only worked one Wisconsin station on
20 and 40. I made a whopping 13 QSOs the first hour and spent most of that time
bonding various rig/keyer/computer components, adding ferrite, changing USB and
RF cables, and fixing the receive noise by turning off the heater fan of the car
and ditching the computer's power supply and only charging its battery while
moving. I apologize for being very deaf that first hour. After that things went
a whole lot better. The atmospheric noise dropped as the day went on, and I
finally made 100 QSOs, all on 80, during the last hour of operation from OUT and
WIN. I think I'm going to try to find a quieter computer and one that is not as
susceptible to RF. I also need to go to 80 sooner if the sunspots continue to
hide.

Now that I'm finally done with my project, next year if the weather is good I'll
run some of the rarer counties up near our cabin. If it's not I'll run some near
home in Madison. 

Thanks to everyone for all the QSOs this weekend and over the years. I know
there are many whom I have worked regularly dating back 30 and 40 years.

73
Jim
WI9WI in MRN, OCO, MEN, OUT and WIN


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