[3830] NyQP K2UA SO MobileCW HP

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                    New York QSO Party - 2022

Call: K2UA
Operator(s): K2UA
Station: K2UA

Class: SO MobileCW HP
QTH: 14 counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Dig Qs
----------------------------
  160:                   
   80:   403             
   40:   560             
   20:   511             
   15:    63             
   10:     6             
    6:                   
    2:                   
  222:                   
  432:                   
----------------------------
Total:  1543    0       0  Mults = 75  Total Score = 231,450

Club: Rochester (NY) DX Association

Comments:

NYQP is one of my favorite events! This year was different than any previous
effort for me, which have all been two-man multiops with either N2MG or K1RO.
This year I was not able to find a teammate for the trip, so I took advantage of
the new county line rules (disclaimer: I co-wrote them). I didn't plan to
operate using those rules this year, but I decided to give that a good try and
see what I could do.

I needed to build a route that had a good number of exclusive county lines close
to each other, and there's not a lot of that in NYS. But I did find six within a
total of less than a 1-hour drive, so I started there, on the Broome-Cortland
border. It's 2.5 hours from home, but leaving at 7 AM gave me plenty of time to
get on-site. I made a C-shaped clockwise route from there, going as far west as
the Steuben-Yates border, then headed north and then east, finishing on the
Oswego-Onondaga line. I activated 14 counties in 8 stops. 

I planned to operate one hour per stop and mapped out a driving route with the
shortest drive times between stops to minimize off-air time. The shortest drive
was 17 minutes and the longest was 47 minutes. Most were in the 25-30 minute
range. That resulted in a trip with 3.6 hours (166 miles) of drive time and just
over 8 hours of operating time. There was, of course, some lost time with a gas
stop and a quick food stop at 5:30 PM, but my itinerary held pretty well.

The station worked great and rates were high most of the day, but especially in
the evening. I had the 10-minute rate meter over 500 a few times, which was
super cool to see. The best three clock hours were 216, 196, and 195. I am
thrilled that NYQP has reached a level of activity that these rates are possible
on CW!

The station was pretty much issue-free. I run two Tarheels on a Honda Pilot.
There are some photos of the setup on the NYQP Facebook page. The front is a
40A-HP that stays on 40 so I can quickly switch there anytime without retuning
the back antenna (a long wait between 80 and 20!), and toggle between 40 and 20
or 40 and 80. The back antenna is a Tarheel 200A-HP, which I run on the other
bands. That antenna is connected to an SGC 500 amplifier, which does 600 W on 80
(still not quite enough for good pileup control!), 500 on 20, and 400 on 15. On
10 and 40 I run barefoot with 200 W from a TS-480HX with the optional CW filter.
Fantastic mobile rig--can't say enough about how good it is. 

Because I was operating while parked for extended periods with the vehicle off,
I ran the radio and amplifier from a pair of 200-Ah LFP batteries. Both lasted
the whole trip. Other than some power line noise at two of my locations, RF
noise wasn't an issue for this trip. Often when driving through towns, you have
to deal with a lot of RFI--it was nice to be able to choose quiet spots to avoid
that.

My compatriots N2MG and N2ZN did a similar operation to what we did last year,
and that has significant advantages--no gaps in on-air time is a huge benefit. I
missed that style of operating this year. But the on-air activity was great!
Working so many of you in many counties is one of the best things about
mobiling. A lot of people deserve callouts here, but I'll name a few--N5OT,
NA1NA, K8MFO, and WN4AFP were super reliable chasers and always early in the
pile-ups. But OM2VL gets special mention. Laci and I worked 17 times, including,
for the first time, QSOs on 80-10 meters. We worked twice each on 10 and 80
meters, if memory serves. That's a first for me, and he was easy to work every
time I heard him except for one stop on 80 meters--but I had a feeling he was in
there and called him anyway, and sure enough he came right back. That's always a
magic moment in mobile operating--thanks, Laci, and to all the other chasers who
make mobile operating so much fun! It's like you were riding along with me in
the car, cheering me on.

It's a long wait until the next NYQP, but fortunately there are others--NEQP in
May is a fantastic event and I'll be mobile in New England again for that one.
Meantime I'll be chasing around a lot of the ops who are QP regulars in their
events. The QSO Party world is really blossoming and I think we all benefit from
that. Thanks again for the Qs and look for much earlier results this year! Don't
forget to submit your logs on time!

--73, Rus, K2UA


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