[3830] MnQP W0M Multi-Op LP

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                    Minnesota QSO Party - 2021

Call: W0M
Operator(s): KA9FOX N9FDE K0WLO AL7RH WA9TS
Station: W0M

Class: Multi-Op LP
QTH: Houston County
Operating Time (hrs): 10:00

Summary:
 Band  CW-RTTY Qs  Ph Qs
-------------------------
  160:                 
   80:     114      127
   40:     182      243
   20:      85      157
   15:                 
   10:                 
-------------------------
Total:     381      527  Mults = 112  Total Score = 203,392

Club: Mississippi Valley Amateur Radio Assn

Comments:

Mississippi Valley Amateur Radio Association (MVARA) recently acquired a
full-sized emergency communications bus that needed some TLC. The club has been
refurbishing it over the last year and was looking for an opportunity to operate
from the bus to test out some of the recent improvements, as well as to test our
ability to setup a viable HF communications center in less than ideal
conditions. Operating the Minnesota QSO party looked like a fun way to test
things out, and with the sub-zero weather Mother Nature through at us this
weekend, it was certainly less than ideal for setup and take down.

One of our members works at a local TV station, WXOW, which has their tower and
studios at a high location in Houston County, and we were given permission to
setup in their parking lot.

As a bonus to operating at the TV station, the news department couldn't resist
checking out what we were doing, and we wound up being a part of the 10pm news
broadcast:

https://wxow.com/2021/02/06/mississippi-valley-amateur-radio-holds-training-in-wxows-parking-lot/

We had plans to put up a tribander on one portable tower, and use two other
portable towers for dipole supports, but with the cold temps, decided to go with
dipoles only (one each for 20m, 40m, and 80m, up about 20-35 feet) and that
worked out just fine, as we felt pretty loud on all bands. The bus and all
antennas were in very close proximity, but with some ICE bandpass filters,
inter-station interference was kept to a minimum and allowed us to to have the
maximum 2 transmitters going for most of the contest period. We had a few
computer and radio issues that we needed to work out after the contest started
-- this was expected and, of course, part of the reason for our participation --
but it did cause us to be off the air for some brief periods.

Multiplier breakdown:

57 US States and Canadian Provinces (only missed DC, LB, NF, NS, NT, PE)
54 Minnesota Counties  (out of 87 possible)
10 DX QSOs (but only 1 counts for the 'DX' multiplier)

We were disappointed that we'd sometimes see mobiles spotted in counties we
needed, but there was no propagation path (too close) or they were just not
strong enough to be audible to us. That said, we were very happy with the
overall multiplier count, as well as the number of QSOs, especially considering
none of us had ever seriously operated the Mn QSO Party before.

Side Note:  After taking everything down and preparing to leave, the driver of
the bus (N9FDE) noticed he had no brakes! The problem was traced to a leaky
brake line. We were VERY fortunate to notice this problem before heading down
the steep hill back into town!!  We are also fortunate that one of our club
members owns a commercial towing company and had the equipment to be able to tow
the bus back to town, where we can work on fixing the problem. 

MVARA has about 30 members. The following were involved in preparation,
operating, setup and/or take-down, for this event:

Bill N9FDE
Scott KA9FOX
Tom WA9TS
Wayne K0WLO
Dan W9FCC
Pete AL7RH
Mike KE0HKA
Cory KC9NOJ
Craig N9ETD
Steve (recently passed General, waiting for call sign)

We had a blast and are looking forward to more operations like this, as well as
being able to use the communications bus as a mobile tool to educate area
students and the general public about amateur radio, and to encourage new
members into joining the ham radio fraternity.

73 - Scott KA9FOX


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