[3830] TxQP N4CD SO Mobile LP

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                    Texas QSO Party - 2020

Call: N4CD
Operator(s): N4CD
Station: N4CD

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

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:                   
   40:                   
   20:                   
   15:                   
   10:                   
    6:                   
    2:                   
  UHF:                   
----------------------------
Total:  809     8       0  Mults = 68  Total Score = 178,624

Club: 

Comments:

An adventure for sure.   

Headed out Saturday morning to run a few counties not spoken for already on the
TX map of 'activated' counties and also had idea to run a few parks for the park
chasers along the way.   Drove 2 hours down toward Mexia TX.    On the line of
Limestone/Freestone TX and ran it on 30m for the county hunters just before
contest started .  N8KIE needed this county. No show.  Turns out he had a power
failure up there in MI all day Saturday.   Contest started and big pileups
ensued immediately.   Took a while to work them all.  I poke along at 23-25 wpm.
  
I can't write any faster!   All paper logs here and hand sent code.  Computer
sits at home. 

After that line, moved up to FREE/NAVA line and other big pileup.   Kept me busy
for a while.   Needed to head over to a park to make a few contacts.  Arrived
about 45 minutes later at Richland Creek WMA - and as I pulled in
entrance....the tire monitoring system blared 'low tire pressure'.  Yep, tire
down to 27 and dropping...hmmm.   Not good.   Got out my little air compressor
and tried to pump it up...... not going to work.....got it up to 30 PSI and five
minutes later down to 20 PSI.   Well, that's what I pay AAA for - but I picked
the worst spot on the run to have a flat tire - 20 miles from any service place.
  Took them about 35 minutes to arrive and change to spare tire.   Worked a few
more meanwhile but still in FREE county.   

My car is a 2016 Malibu LTD.  New cars seldom come with a spare tire.  I paid
extra to get a spare tire/jack.  There's space for it - one of the compact
types.    Otherwise you get a 'fix a flat' kit with gunk and hope it works.   I
don't think it would have worked in this case.  

Checked route and decided to skip next park (40 extra miles).  I'm not a fan of
lots of miles on the 'compact spare'.   They are supposedly good for 1000 miles
or more but I got some miles on it already.  It's only a 2 ply tire, too.  It
was a couple hour drive to home.  Flat tire cost me over an hour time.  And
frustration!   

Checked  direct route home and went that way. Still could get a couple county
lines on way home.   Did another check and there is a Discount Tire store in Gun
Barrel City TX (how's that for a good TX name?) right on the way home.  Drop by
the store and it would be 30-60 minutes to get the flat fixed.  Decided I'd
rather be riding on regular tire so worth waiting.  Another hour lost.  Turns
out it was screw in tire - right in middle of tread.   

After that, headed on home via 3 more counties arriving home at dinner time.  A
bit worn out - skipped lunch other than a banana with the problems.   Luckily no
traffic mess my route but other direction on I-635 around Dallas had 10 mile
totally stopped backup.  Whew!  Lucked out.   Stopped at my favorite park in
Dallas County for the last county today  - then home.   

Sunday came and still pooped out from Saturday adventure but 45 miles up the
road is a 3 way county line for the TQP.  (COLN, FANN, GRSN).    WB0TEV ran this
the day before on SSB.   Started there a bit after 1400z.  Made a few SSB QSOs
but never got a good run on SSB when I tried before. Likely too many TX stations
I didn't hear taking most of the frequencies for SSB.   No sweat.  Had good run
on CW. 

After that, drove diagonally 50 miles across COLN county to the corner of DENT
and put it out, then headed home.   

Ran 12 TX counties.  Worked 22 TX counties and N5NA in more than 5 but
otherwise, mobiles were tough to find and when I did rarely find them had big
pileups that I wasn't going to bust any time soon. Most TX Qs other than N5NA,
KS5A, K5EC,   were fixed stations.  Never heard the ssb mobiles mobiles but
didn't listen much on SSB.   

Missed a whole bunch of states - didn't find CT of all things, nor NM, UT, WY,
NV, AK, HI, SD, ND,  ME.   Worked OH, DL, HA for DX.    

400 miles driven.   Single op, no driver.  Stopped to run 98% of the time and
just caught a few mults while driving.   

Conditions - decent on 20M but EU weak down in TX - DL3DXX and DL9USA in log a
bunch of times.  Supposedly there was WAE SSB contest but they were zip in TX
but took a lot of the New England stations away from TQP.  Likely created a lot
of QRM there too.   Then there was the FOC BW CW contest - but the exchange did
not include the QTH so I didn't bother with them but they filled good part of
20M CW band while it was going on.   

The AL QP was also going on and caught about a dozen there.    Could only work
the fixed stations once.   Looks like 3 mobiles out in AL QP.  

Looks like most mobiles this year made one day trips - returning home at night
to avoid motel stays and avoid eating out due to COVID concerns.   Same here -
back home after run on Sat. Out again on Sunday. 

12,000 bonus points for 12 counties activated.  500 bonus points for working
N5NA in more than five counties.       

And that's the story from N4CD for 2020


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