[SECC] GaQP W4NZ/M Rover LP

[Ted Bryant]

                    Georgia QSO Party

Call: W4NZ/M
Operator(s): W4NZ, K0EJ & XYL, NA4K, N4DRV
Station: W4NZ/M

Class: Rover LP
QTH: North Georgia
Operating Time (hrs): 19

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:           
   80:   138     
   40:  1492     
   20:    31     
   15:           
   10:           
    6:           
--------------------
Total:  1661    0  CW Mults = 45  Ph Mults = 0  Total Score = 149,490

Club: Tennessee Contest Group

Comments:

Thanks to the SECC and SEDXC for sponsoring the GQP and allowing us to play in
your yard. Judging from the pileups we saw as a rover, the 2008 running of the
GQP was a great success.

This was only our second attempt at playing rover in a state QSO party.  Our
setup consisted of an Icom 756proII and laptop. Two antennas were mounted to
the luggage rack on the roof of my Chevy Astro Van. With two antenna outputs on
the proII, this gave us instant access to two bands. We used Hamsticks for
20/40m and a Hustler for 80m. 

Our Saturday, crew was Sam N4DRV,chief driver/navigator, Steve NA4K and myself.
The Saturday route covered 12 counties (mostly North-central to Northwest) and
292 miles. Early on, Murphy found us in the form of an intermittent failure of
the 20m Hamstick. Never solved that problem even after replacing the Hamstick
with another. That is why our 20m QSO total is so dismal. Strange thing about
it, the 80m Hustler worked just fine on the same antenna mount. There were two
noteworthy events during Saturday's trip.  Near the end, while in Dade county
we pulled into the parking area for the hang glider port on top of Lookout
Mountain. 80m was just getting hot so we sat there for a while and had a great
run. (the view over Trenton and the valley below wasn't bad either!) On the way
down the mountain, suddenly,the swr on the Hustler went haywire so I QSY'd to
40m. I could see Sam and Steve were laughing and gesturing toward the van roof
(the Hustler was mounted just above them). When we stopped at my house they
told me something had hit the Hustler (no, not a tree limb, they thought it was
a bat!) They heard something thrashing around on the roof for a few seconds and
then it went away. Looking at the antenna, the resonator was bent at an odd
angle, both at the mast and the end cap where the stinger emerges. (I hope I
don't have to file an environmental impact statement for the mobile!)

Sunday wasn't as eventful as Saturday night for our crew of Mark K0EJ, his XYL
Judy and me. Our route took us through the Northeastern counties into the
mountains which provided a very scenic ride. We covered 17 counties and 328
miles. Thanks to Judy (our chief navigator), we modified our route to include
Banks County (and another 50 QSO's!)

Conditions were..well, it's the bottom of the cycle..and about what you'd
expect. But, we did have good weather.

Apologies to those we could not copy and I'm sure there must have been a lot of
QSB on our signal as we went through the valleys.  Thanks for digging us out and
your patience while we chased the keyboard around trying to fix a typo.(a
touchpad mouse is a real adventure in a mobile!)

There were several outstanding signals: N9CK (who seemed to know our route as
well as we did!), W9IU, NM2L, NF4A, W8MJ, WB9CIF, W0BH, N9FC, K8MR, N4BP,
VE3KZ, OM2VL, CU2JT, AA3B, VE3UTT, W4AU and KI2G come to mind. The persistence
award goes to NO5W. Chuck had the skip against him but hung in there to catch
us in 12 counties.

Congratualtions on great scores from Paul N4PN/m, John and Jeff with W4AN/m.

Thanks to everyone for the QSO's and making this a lot of fun.  Hope we were
able to give someone a new county or two.

73, Ted W4NZ