[3830] NeQP W0BH Mobile/Portable LP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    Nebraska QSO Party - 2021

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

Class: Mobile/Portable LP
QTH: 26 NE counties
Operating Time (hrs): 14.7

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs  FT8 Qs
------------------------------------
  160:                           
   80:    37     0               
   40:   422   110               
   20:   579   703               
   15:                           
   10:                           
    6:                           
    2:                           
  UHF:                           
------------------------------------
Total:  1038   813      0       0  Mults = 64  FTn Mults = 0  Total Score = 371,092

Club: 

Comments:

Score includes 1300 mobile bonus points for activating 26 counties and a 2x
power multiplier. My log has been submitted to the QSO party sponsor.

2021 Nebraska QSO Party by Bob Harder, W0BH

The red Oklahoma dust from the OKQP still coated the wheels of our trusty Chevy
Astro van as Lorna/k0why and I headed north on I-135 towards the Nebraska
border. The cold front and rain had just moved out with the promise of some
sunshine, but we were left with the wind.

The goal of this trip was to put out some Nebraska counties during the day and
catch the famous Sandhill crane migration along the Platte River near Kearney. I
planned a part-time 27 county effort that looped us north of Kearney on Saturday
with a southern county return. We planned to stop early on Saturday and head to
the river to see the cranes fly in from their daytime feeding in the fields,
then start later on Sunday morning after heading back to the river to see them
depart. The motel in Kearney would be our first overnight since last summer and
since we were both vaccinated. It feels like progress is finally being made.

Same setup in the van as the OKQP, so you can read that post if you want more
equipment information. I had some intermittent power issues with the IC-7000 in
Oklahoma, so before this trip, I installed my second operating position in the
middle seat of the van. The whole setup is in a milk crate including the
IC-706Mk2G just in case I needed to switch radios or any other piece of primary
equipment quits working. I went through the whole power chain on the IC-7000 and
couldn't find anything wrong, so we'll see.

A few miles short of the border, we topped off the gas tank, connected the
batteries and put antennas on the roof in the morning sunshine. I have separate
battery systems for the radio and the other electronics. When I flipped the
switch for the electronics, the keyer didn't send it's usual --- -.- [period]
That happens sometimes, so I tried several more times with no luck. The other
electronics were on (voice keyer, band decoder, logging computer). I pulled out
the meter and it showed 12v to the the keyer. I unplugged and plugged it back in
a few times and still no "OK", so I decided to swap it out with my
spare keyer. One last try and suddenly it worked. Good to go.

We crossed the border into Thayer county a few minutes later.  K5CM, KV8Q and
N5KW were there after my first CQ on 7037, and we were off. Not much action yet,
so I tried 20M which seemed a bit better. My first two contacts on 14037 were
K7JQ and VE3YT. With 17 QSOs in the log, I worked N6KR and suddenly the
"N" wouldn't work on my computer keyboard! Looking back a few
contacts, it worked fine for N9NM, N5RZ and N6DE, then it just quit working.
Murphy was riding along for sure. I tried hitting the "N" a bit harder
and I tried rebooting the computer twice, but no luck. One spare logging
computer later and we were off once again. 

I used a FunSpots page on the NEQP home page to post my county and band changes.
A few other Nebraska stations found it as well and that got things going. Rates
quickly picked up and never really slowed down. Before my runs, I get emails
from you all with your county wish lists and I have them in front of me when I
operate. We were successful more often than not this time. I even gave out two
last counties, one on CW and a different one on SSB! 
 
Perhaps Murphy was done for the day? Not so fast. After working fine for a few
hours, the radio suddenly went dark .. the same problem I'd had in Oklahoma. It
really felt like a power-chain problem. In Oklahoma, I got it working by
wiggling the power connector on the back of the radio. It would work for a few
minutes, then quit again. Same scenario this time. Lorna eventually stopped the
van and I went back through the cables and considered using my backup milk
crate. During that process, I noticed the power cable was stretched pretty tight
as it went into the radio, so I pushed the radio back a half inch to relieve the
stress. That seemed to work. No more problems the rest of the run.

Our only other real issue was the wind blowing 40+ mph from the north. Much of
our run was east-west on both days, so Lorna drove with both hands on the wheel
and did a great job keeping the van on the road. It's lucky we didn't have a
long route planned, because the driving was more tiring than usual. But there
were rewards. We were far enough west to get into the beautiful rolling sandhill
prairie country which can only be experienced. You can easily imagine the wagon
trains, the bison and the Native Americans.

The State QSO Party Challenge has really helped boost QSO party activity and
I've had fun participating by trying to make contacts in each of the 45 QSO
parties and by turning in a log (46 last year). This weekend included the New
Mexico QSO Party, the North Dakota QSO Party and the Georgia QSO Party. NM and
GA were easy to find, but ND had me worried. It turned out to be a non-issue as
a loud ND station, K0JP/m found me in Greeley county. A few hours later he found
me again at the Dawson/Buffalo line. Only one of those counties would count for
ND since the other would be a DUPE in my ND log, but we were set. Shortly
afterwards, I found AC0W/m and N0HJZ/m also having fun in the NDQP. I especially
appreciated working ND4K/Dave in the GQP. He reminded me of the great times we
had roving the GQP with Paul/N4PN (SK) and John/N6MU (61 counties and a few
years later 73 counties). Great memories!

After a quick detour to pick up Dawson county and a nice run, we connected with
I-80 and headed back east to Kearney to see the Sandhill cranes. We knew from a
previous trip that the Ft. Kearny State Recreation Area had a old railroad
bridge converted to a hike and bike trail across the Platte River, an ideal spot
for crane watching. As soon as she parked in the parking area, Lorna grabbed her
binoculars and disappeared up the trail to the bridge! By the way, Ft. Kearny is
spelled correctly and spelled differently than the nearby town of Kearney.

The cranes were already flying and the wind had stopped, so their calls were
everywhere. As I was removing an antenna for the night, a flight of ten or so
cranes flew directly overhead maybe 50 feet up. Cranes are LOUD talkers that
close and beautiful, graceful aviators! I found Lorna up the trail. We watched
flight after flight of cranes come in off the fields and land on the sandbars
where they found a safe place to overnight. At one point, a herd of deer came
down to the river and scared some of the cranes, causing a great wave of
airborne excitement and noise which slowly died down. As sunrise, we were back
out watching the cranes depart. Truly an amazing site as they migrate north from
northern Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma to the northern plains and Canada. We headed
back to Kearney quite pleased with the day with 1017 contacts in the log.

The next morning after crane-watching, we headed west to pick up several rare
counties before heading east and south on the return to Kansas. I drove back
through Buffalo and Dawson counties without operating and gave Lorna an early
break from driving in the wind. Conditions were terrific when I fired up in
Gosper county. A short detour took us to the Frontier/Gosper county line for a
nice run. I found out later that WY7AA/m (RJ) was sitting on the Frontier/Red
Willow line at the same time! 

In Oklahoma, I made zero DX contacts, a first I think. In Nebraska, I worked
eight DX countries and was really surprised to put JO7WXN in the mobile log
twice! DX conditions weren't great, but at least I worked a few. 15M never
opened.

The strangest experience happened when I glanced up on the outskirts of a town
(can't remember the county) and saw a pickup heading down the highway in the
opposite direction at a pretty good speed dragging a deer by a rope around it's
head. I assume the driver must have hit the deer and killed it, but beyond that
I can't imagine. Still shaking my head on that one.

With the big pileups, I decided to keep working them rather than drive back
across Thayer county (where we started on Saturday) to get to Jefferson county.
We had six minutes left when we arrived back in Thayer. Twenty SSB contacts
later, the clock ran out!

Stats

Operated 14.7 hours, 1885 Qs, 514 unique calls, 34 dupes, 574 OKQP miles (865
total miles).

States not worked (2) : AK HI
Canadian mults worked (6) : AB BC MB NB ON SK
NE worked (2) : SEWA SARP
DX worked (8) : DL GI HA I OM ON S5 JA

W0BH Rate (includes dupes) : 128/hr
Sat 1017 Qs
Sun  868 Qs

County Breakdown (in visited order, no dupes)

01 THAY 103 Thayer
02 FILL 33  Fillmore
03 YORK 59  York
04 POLK 93  Polk
05 BUTL 43  Butler
06 PLAT 93  Platte
07 MERR 72  Merrick
08 NANC 83  Nance
09 HOWA 67  Howard
10 GREE 65  Greeley
11 VLLY 70  Valley
12 SHRM 92  Sherman
13 CUST 67  Custer
14 BUFF 69  Buffalo
15 DAWS 79  Dawson
16 GOSP 112 Gosper
17 FRON 65  Frontier
18 FURN 71  Furnas
19 HRLN 68  Harlan
20 PHEL 58  Phelps
21 KEAR 41  Kearney
22 FRNK 60  Franklin
23 WEBS 67  Webster
24 ADMS 74  Adams
25 CLAY 43  Clay
26 NUCK 104 Nuckolls

Special thanks to my top scorers:

51: KA6BIM
48: K5CM
43: KK5I
35: K5WAF K9RS
26: K1RO
24: NA5DX
20: K8MFO N8II
19: NW0M WN4AFP
18: K7TM KK7AC
17: WA1SAY
16: K7REL N6AR
15: N6HC OM2VL
14: AB7RW AD1C N6GP NS2N W0PI
13: AA4TI KE8FT W6OAT
12: N3RM N9NM VE6BMX
11: K3WJV K5KDG K6FGV WA2JQK
10: K4YFH K7SV KC0ZVN VE3YT VE7BC W5VS

NE Mobiles Worked: none
Bonus Counties: 26

W0BH Award Winners
----------------- First Place ----- Very Honorable Mention --
Most overall Qs - KA6BIM/51 ------- K5CM/48 ---- K5WAF/35
Most CW Qs ------ KA6BIM/35 ------- K5CM/30 ---- K5WAF/24
Most PH Qs ------ K5CM/KK7AC/18 --- WA1SAY/17 -- KA6BIM/16
Most counties --- K5CM/KA6BIM/24 -- K9RS/22 ---- KK7AC/18
-------------------------------------------------------------

Afterwards

Thanks to Fred/KB0LF for the web site updates and to Nebraska ARRL Section
Manager Matt/KA0BOJ for managing the NEQP in 2021. Nebraska is such a beautiful
state to mobile in, and it felt especially good this year. Of course the rest of
you made it all worthwhile!

The 2021 Kansas QSO Party is scheduled for August 28-29, the last weekend in
August. With 105 counties, we need all the help we can get, so mobiles, head
this way!  Everyone else, thanks for the Qs in Nebraska, and see you down the
log in 2021 ..

73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why

QPC #14


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/