[3830] TxQP W5CT Multi-Op Mobile HP

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                    Texas QSO Party - 2021

Call: W5CT
Operator(s): K5PI W5MJ WK5S
Station: W5CT

Class: Multi-Op Mobile HP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:                   
   40:   791     3       
   20:  1307    41       
   15:     2             
   10:                   
    6:                   
    2:                   
  UHF:                   
----------------------------
Total:  2100    44      0  Mults = 106  Total Score = 713,962

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

After missing two years, the W5CT team of Madison W5MJ, Robert K5PI, and Steve
WK5S hit the road again!  Madison was facing some major repairs on the 2014
Chevy Traverse we had all tricked out, so he traded it in on a new one.  It's a
great new ride, but we had to reinstall everything – and re-engineer a number
of things.  

We used our previous combination of a Tarheel 100A screwdriver, a Texas
Bugcatcher, and two TS-480HX radios.  The Tarheel was a champ as always.  The
Bugcatcher was a great performer, but needed a few tighten/tweak stops during
the weekend.  

We had a 2X6 antenna switch installed and working, but it failed as we did our
final check before hitting the road.  This unfortunately meant hard wiring each
radio through a bandpass filter to a particular antenna.  We had planned to swap
20/40 from time to time and try 15M, but that would have required a stop every
time, so we just settled in with Madison on 40 and me on 20.  We'd planned to
make an appearance on 80 Saturday night, but the Bugcatcher wouldn't cooperate. 
We discovered later that the whip at the top had loosened and slid down, losing
our tuning point. 

We really like doing our multi-two, but it means accepting a fair bit of
inter-station interference.  The 40M radio was several S-units into the 20M
radio, so only the loudest stations could be heard over it.  But by watching
N1MM's Network Status window, we could sync up our transmissions pretty well. 
And with an occasional QRX hand signal, we could pull out some of the weaker
ones on 20.

We'd pretty well licked our RFI problems in the old vehicle, but this year's
installation work left a limited amount of time for RFI testing.  The 40M radio
in the back seat had the worst of it, but the 20M rig in the front seat had some
too.  A few times the 40M transmissions would actually key the 20M rig!  We
found that the worst RFI times usually meant that it was time to check and
tighten antennas.  That would get us QRV X 2 pretty soon.

Thanks all for your patience in working us.  We faced a couple other challenges
you might not think about.  We would occasionally hit spots of high local noise
(e.g., power lines).  And then there's the challenges of trying to type while
bouncing down a bumpy road!  I decided to forego paddles this year, and that
worked out pretty well, I think.  Madison uses his a bit more, but said it
wasn't easy with the bumps and all.

Steve was once again a trooper for us behind the wheel.  He spent a good deal of
time studying the route, so he had a good dead reckoning sense.  His paper
directions and some help from Microsoft Streets and Trips kept us on the route
and on time.  We did get a late start Sunday morning, so we started the contest
in Dallas county.  We've learned to leave a bit of slack in the schedule for
unexpected circumstances, so we got back on schedule and covered all our
counties.  

We had a nice surprise on final county line stop on Saturday night.  We've found
a three-county corner west of Fort Worth that we've used several times.  With
the 80M antenna offline, I was banging away on 40 CW solo and suddenly heard a
very loud nearby signal pumping my AGC.  Huh?  I dialed up and heard the same
exchange I was sending “TARR/PARK/WISE”.  Huh?!  My first thought was that
maybe something had fallen on back seat keyboard and was causing that rig to
transmit.  Next I heard “CQ AD4EB”.  Ha!  There was a van parked on the
other side of the road, and it was Jim and Melody finishing their route in the
same spot.  All us mobile types look at each other's routes, but neither of us
had put together that we were ending in the same place.  We had a nice eyeball
QSO and congratulated Jim on some great numbers.  

This was our best QSO total to date by almost 200 Qs.  On the ROCK/COLN/HUNT
county line, we actually saw the momentary rate meter hit 1000!  We think the
new third-weekend slot is great.  There are several other QSO Parties but no
conflicts with CQWW RTTY, WAE, or the CW Sprint as in the past.  Thanks to all
the stations who jumped into the fray, and thanks to NO5W for putting together a
great APRS tracking page for the mobile stations.  Thanks especially to the
stations below who gave use more than 20 QSOs each.  Y'all come see us, and
we'll buy you a BBQ dinner!  73 and see you next year!

AA4TI	 (28)
DL3DXX (28)
K1RO (21)
K3TW (23)
K5ZE (30)
K8MFO (30)
K8QKY (28)
KA6BIM (25)
N5RZ (26)
N6MU (37)
N8II (29)
NT6X (38)
OM2VL (22)
W5TM (31)
W6TED (23)
WA6KHK (23)
WB9CIF (38)


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