[SECC] FQP Preliminary Report

[John Laney]

K5YAA and I had a good day Sunday.  The amp relay didn't hang up even 
once.  Jerry made a few changes to the memory keys in the logging 
program that made them easier for me to use.  Still had problems.  Will 
have to extensively edit the Cabrillo log file after I get it from Jerry 
to make it acceptable to the sponsors and, after doing that, will try to 
refigure the claimed score. Nothing we can do about the QSOs that it 
said were duplicates and refused to log.

Thanks for all the QSOs.  N4PN was phenominal about getting through on 
ground wave from Macon, GA to north FL.  Nice to work K4HAL.  Also K1ZZI 
caught us for two counties as we past a sign post on the interstate.  We 
were running a bit ahead of schedule Sunday afternoon. We added Clay 
County in the Jax FL area.  Made only one QSO in Nassau as we breezed 
through a corner in the interstate.  Someone needed UNIon County badly 
and we backtracked about 15 miles to dead end there for about 30 
minutes.  Still got back into LEOn County, where my car had been left at 
a motel and where Jerry was to spend the night.

Jerry's set up worked very well.  K3 to AL811H and a screwdriver on a 
trailer. Also on the trailer is a gasoline generator which powers the 
AL811H on 110v.  He has a spare rig and antennas just in case, but we 
didn't need them.  Logging is on a Dell laptop. Power output varied from 
400 to 600W.  Jerry had the memories set for each band so that we could 
QSY to SSB by punching two buttons.  We didn't retune the amp or the 
screwdriver for SSB, so the power was lower than it could have been on 
SSB, but we did work OE3K once on SSB and DL5ME twice.

Jerry uses only the keyboard for sending and is real good at going to 
keyboard mode to send anything that isn't in the F keys.  He did have 
his trusty bug along, but just used the lock device to key the amp for 
tuning.  I had told him that I must have a paddle for sending when I 
didn't have the call correct in the computer on time and he mounted a 
Bengali paddle on his passenger door inside that worked great for that 
purpose.  I really love that paddle.

We missed our goal of 3,000 QSOs by a good margin.  I seem to recall the 
total was around 2700.  Probably 100 of them on phone. K0HC, WA3HAE, 
K0JPL were good to get us to QSY to SSB and we always called for others 
when we were on that mode and I am sure we worked some of the SSB only 
contesters.

Many of the guys who followed us around aren't subscribed to these 
reflectors, but we surely do appreciate them all.  I think we missed MS, 
VT, and AK on both modes.  We did work KH6LC a lot.
15M was quite good for DX and parts of the US, but the rate was never as 
good as on 20 (and 40 at night).  We started on 40 Sunday morning and 
didn't get back to 40 until in LEO near then end when we were rewarded 
with QSOs with KU8E, N4JF, and the NH twins, N1IX and K1QO.

We stayed pretty much on the same frequency on each band and mode 
(except for some special phone QSY requests) which should have made us 
easy to find.  We did QSY up about 500 Hz once when some IOTA station 
had callers on our usual frequency.  All of our SSB QSOs were on 20 
except for one QSY with KU8E on 40M.

Full report to 3830 after I get the log from Jerry and get it into shape 
for the log checkers.  Jerry has a two-day drive home to OK.

73, John, K4BAI.