[3830] HiQP NH6O SOAB QRP

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                    Hawaii QSO Party - 2022

Call: NH6O
Operator(s): NH6O
Station: NH6O

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: Honolulu
Operating Time (hrs): 5.8

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs  Mults
-----------------------------------
  160:                           
   80:                           
   40:    3     2                
   20:   31     6      53        
   15:    1             3        
   10:                           
-----------------------------------
Total:   35     8      56      32  Total Score = 9,248

Club: 

Comments:

Park portable - Elecraft KX3 5W, 31-ft EFHW deployed vertically in tree

I wanted to spend much more time than I did on air this weekend, but every one
of my outings had problems - I should almost claim a multi-op entry with
"Mr. Murphy."

On Friday night, my favorite site that I have used 2-3x/week for 4 months was
overrun with a youth football practice. I was unable to set up until 0430, and
had a decent hour of operating until 20m closed to the mainland around 0530. I
wanted to deploy a longer 71-ft wire to maximize my opportunity on 40/80, but my
arborist throw line got stuck in the tree. Pulling on the thinner line broke it
- my bag and line were stuck in the tree after dark and I did not have any long
rods to try to free it. Friday night session over...

I returned to the same park around 0130z (Saturday afternoon), and found that
the line had worked free in the trade wind breezes. A man and his young daughter
were playing with it, and I had to explain that it was mine and what it was for.
Turned out the man was a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant from Brooklyn
visiting Oahu for the summer. I speak some Russian, so we had a nice chat that
delayed my setup.

Once I did get going on FT8/FT4 around 0300 for the WW-DIGI overlap segment of
the event, a group of rough-looking young men set up at the adjacent bench
blasting loud music, smoking pot, and drinking heavily. Since I was working FT
modes, it wasn't affecting my listening ability, but it was annoying. I looked
over at them a few times to hint that their behavior was bothersome, and I took
a photo just in case the situation deteriorated. 

The biggest/scariest-looking/most heavily tattooed guy of the group immediately
came over to ask why I was taking his picture and wanted me to show it to him. I
calmed him down and defused the situation, but it was clear he was very
intoxicated and had a criminal record. I was not going to stick around and press
my luck on getting beaten up, stabbed, or shot...session #2 over at sunset -
0500z.

Oh, and sometime in that 2 hour span, the back of my shirt developed a large wet
spot - turned out to be pigeon excrement - at least it wasn't on my head!

After the run-in with the punks, I was not going to return to my #1 park, and
wanted to spend 6 hours on air on Sunday (2200z-0400z). I went instead to the
large park between Waikiki and Diamond Head. Parking was impossible (very
popular on weekends), and I had to park at a distance and schlep my equipment
about a quarter mile.

My first location had a high noise level, and the bands were strangely dead (I
had not learned of the R2 flare/blackout). I moved to another bench under a tree
about 300 yards away. While walking there, I was hit by an errant tennis ball
from the adjacent courts (no harm done - just surprise).

Arriving at my new location, I threw my arborist bag/deployment line into the
tree, and the bag stuck firmly in a branch junction. The antenna wire was only
halfway off the ground, and I could not get the bag loose to complete the
deployment. After a frustrating 45 minutes of trying to free the deployment
line, I decided to use the wire as it was - with the bottom part stretched
horizontally to form an L instead of my preferred straight up-and-down vertical
orientation.

Once I did get going around 0015, the bands were still in terrible shape for me.
Nobody was spotting me on RBN at all, which is unusual. I moved to 15 meters and
mustered 4 contacts between 0030 and 0130 - one local CW QSO (Mark WH7W - I was
literally in his backyard), 1 local FT8 contact (Jackson - KH6DQ), and 2 distant
FT8 contacts (N6RO and JA8FND).

Around 0140, I still wasn't having any luck getting spotted on RBN on 20, but
the FT8 watering hole was active. I managed some contacts with mostly West Coast
stations, but late in the hour signal strengths improved and I was working some
Midwest and East Coast. 

Around 0300, I took a shot a 20m SSB, which was good for me at that time last
year. Wasn't happening for me this year - but had a nice chat on 20 SSB with
Dennis N6KI/NX6T, and we tried 15m - I heard him ever so faintly on CW, but the
path was unworkable.

If I was going to have any success on 20 CW, it was going to be in the final
hour, and I did finally manage to get some RBN spots to initiate a decent run of
17 contacts from 0310-0345 that included a very faint UA9FBC. I have no idea how
Andy was able to hear me!

When my run died at 0345, I decided to check 40 again, working Stan AH6KO (great
job this year Stan!). I had already worked the other loud CW stations (NX6T and
N6RO). I found NX6T and K6GHA chatting on SSB, and called Dennis - he finally
heard me just above the noise, and Don also heard me just well enough to
complete another band/mode QSO. My 31-foot wire is not good on 40, especially
before dark!

That's the story of my portable QRP HQP adventure this year. I managed only 99
contacts, far less than last year. I got only 4 local multipliers, 2 on my home
island of Oahu, and 2 on the Big Island. Sorry to completely miss the Maui guys,
and none of the Kauai ops could hear me on 20.

But I learned/reinforced 4 good lessons, though:

-It is much better to be crapped on by a bird than beaten up or killed by a
drunk street tough.
-Keep a spare arborist bag/line on hand just in case. 
-Don't trust 24ga wire for anything but the safest/gentlest deployments.
-Any antenna wire configuration works better than none at all!

Thanks to all who pulled my tiny signal out of the noise this year. Aloha and
72/73,
Bob NH6O in Honolulu


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