[CQ-Contest] FQP Murphy style

[N4KM at aol.com]

Well, there are always good stories to tell after FQP, and I think this year 
may be the best for me. 

First let me say that I knew this year was going to be rough anyway as my 
partner for 4 of the last 5 years was Jim K4OJ. Thanks guys for all of the OJ's, 
I thought of past years and my fallen comrade everytime I heard it. It was 
great to hear such a fitting tribute to him. 

I found a great partner for this year, and after what we went through this 
year and remained friends I think Red K0LUZ and I will be operating in many 
contests side by side for a long time. 

About 5 minutes before the start of the FQP we discovered that we had a 
problem with the remote speaker on the radio. To fix this problem I had to pull the 
passenger seat out as the IC-706 is mounted under the passenger seat. Bear in 
mind that Red and I are on the way to our starting point, so we pulled over 
into a reality parking lot and proceeded to tear the truck apart. Well, that 
problem was solved, but it put us behind enough that there was no way that we 
were going to make it to orange county to start, so we started in seminal for a 
few minutes on the way to orange. 

Anyway, the next hour or so was pretty uneventful, good rates, good sigs, and 
we were having a good time, UNTIL, we were rolling down I95 in broward 
county. We were following a pickup truck with a big cardboard box in the back. The 
box was the type that you might get a TV in or something like that. Double 
corrugated. Just as I was thinking, I need to get out from behind this #$#%$#%^ 
person before the #%#$%$#% box flies out of his truck, his box flew out of the 
truck. It flew must have went 30 feet straight up in the air, and for a split 
second I was thinking. We are going to make it under this box before it is low 
enough to do any damage. Unfortunately, it came down before we got past. Red 
was busy operating and exclaimed "Where did all the signals go?". I reply with 
something like "They are with our antennas smashed all over the road!!!!!" I 
had  15,20,and 40 meter hamsticks on a super modified K4OJ magnet on the top of 
my Exterra and that @$#@$#@$ box had sheared them off at the mount. I 95 in 
that area is 4 lanes going both ways and was completely full of traffic. 
Needless to say, the hamsticks were pulp as soon as they hit the road. To make 
matters worse, our spare antenna a W6AAU screwdriver had also been it. The whip on 
it was bent, the mount which I had made out of 3/16 think angle iron was bent 
so the antenna was leaning back on about a 30 deg. angle, and several of the 
connections to the antenna had been pulled loose. 

Well, the Hamsticks were gone. We were able to repair the screwdriver and get 
back on the road. One note that needs to be added here is, in an e-mail 
exchange, George K5KG alias K4KG/M told me that he had a secret weapon this year. 
Little did I know that it was a box launcher in the back of a pickup truck!  
Thanks Geo!

Murphy was not done yet! We got back on the air through broward, miami-dade, 
and collier. We them made a slight turn to the left and headed into monroe 
country. We were pulled off to the side of the road when Red exclaimed "Do you 
smell something burning?" Shortly there after the smoke was rolling. It turned 
out to be the DC to AC inverter that was powering the laptop. So we worked as 
long as we could with the laptop battery in monroe. Then it died. We 
unfortunately were 200 miles for anywhere to find a replacement, so we sent and logged 
by had for the next couple of hours, until we got into the FT. Myers area and 
Radio Shack to pick one up right before they closed. 

All this Murphy business had put us way behind schedule, so I apologize to 
anyone who might have missed a sweep due to the counties that we did not get to 
on saturday. Remember, this was still saturday!!!! 

There is a silver lining to this story, sunday was a great day. No problems 
at all condx were good and a lot of stations to work in each county.

The pileups were incredible as we passed into a new county. Thanks to all who 
worked us, especially the dx stations who had to wait till we worked the 
stateside guys so we could hear them. Some notables were GM3POI ( Clive worked us 
at times of the day I would not have thought he would have made it) , DL6KVA, 
LY3BA, G4BUO, and many others.  

Thanks everybody for making it a great FQP inspite of all the problems. 

 OJ!


73,
Kevin
N4KM