Florida QSO Party
Call: N4CW/M
Operator(s): N4CW
Station: N4CW
Class: SO Mobile+DriverMixed LP
QTH: Florida
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
40: 829 49
20: 1240 40
15:
10:
--------------------
Total: 2069 89 CW Mults = 63 Ph Mults = 29 Total Score = 777,768
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
This year's FQP setup: W4TMO (Jim) was the driver/navigator...he's really good
at both, having planned the routes carefully. The op (myself, N4CW) was in the
back seat of the RAV-4. Jim had built an "operating table", modeled
somewhat after K4KG's FQP photos. Our 40M antenna was a center-loaded (new Texas
Bug Catcher loading coil) with home-made mast (the Bug Catcher is really BIG --
equating to quite a bit of surface area/wind load)...I couldn't find a
commercially-made mast (5 feet long) that didn't flex terribly! Atop the coil
was a 4-foot mast topped with a 12-inch disk! The idea was to have the most
efficient trailer hitch antenna possible...still a work in progress. We had a
dedicated short Outback antenna on a mag mount on the roof...we'll have to
revisit that in the future. Again, K4KG has tremendous success with heliwhips
mounted on his roof; we may try and emulate that setup for next year. The rig
was a K3 and WinKeyer USB II. We logged with NO5W "CQ-X".
Ssturday we started early to get to OSC to start. We thought we had ironed-out
all the bugs in the mobile setup...HAH!!!!...we hadn't! The nastiest problem
that Murphy developed for us was r.f. getting into the car's computer! We
thought we'd "bought the farm" AT THE FURTHEST POINT FROM OUR HOME
BASE...we stopped at the nearest Advanced Auto Parts store and had them read the
code: it indicated a problem with the "Limited Slip Differential" and
the car was misfiring as a result. After that reading, we headed
"home" pronto using the shortest route we could devise! Oddly, we
found that if we kept the speed under 60 mph, we had no engine misfiring. The
error code, though, was still there and the indicator for "AUTO LSD"
stayed lit, blinking, with the "Check Engine" light on solid. Jim
figured if it was a false indication caused by r.f. getting into the computer,
that we could erase me computer memory by lifting the battery ground. We did
that on Sunday morning, before heading out and the problem never surfaced again.
To assist in that regard I kept the power output at 50 Watts for the duration!
The r.f. problem also crashed the laptop a few times, prompting a complete
shutdown. So we did lose some operating time to Murphy's whims...something to
correct in the future.
Other pertinent statistics:
Total of 36 Florida counties were activated
Top Ten in total number of Q's:
K9CT(54)
K9NW(45)
K1GQ(38)
N8II(35)
VE3DZ(34)
K9OM(29)
VA3DF(28)
K8IR(28)
VE3UTT(27)
W2RR(26)
This was our second FQP as a driver/operator team and our best performance. We
really enjoyed ourselves "traipsing" through Florida, viewing the
sights, as well as operating from one pileup to another! Many thanks to the many
that pulled us out of the noise, despite conditions; also, thanks to the VERY
patient participants who stood by while we re-booted several times! Then there
were the sections of noisy power lines that we couldn't possibly hear anything
through!!!
The folks that I worked were polite, friendly, and super ops! Thanks. And a
special thank you to the Florida Contest Group for sponsoring this great (and
fun) operating event. 73 from Bert & Jim (N4CW & W4TMO)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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