Arkansas QSO Party - 2021
Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH
Class: SO Mobile LP
QTH: 17 AR counties
Operating Time (hrs): 10.1
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80: 11 8
40: 379 86
20: 326 338
15: 8 8
10: 8 8
2:
----------------------------
Total: 732 448 0 Mults = 62 Total Score = 127,244
Club:
Comments:
Score includes 8500 mobile bonus points for activating 17 counties and 200 bonus
points for working bonus station WR5P once. Log has been submitted to the QSO
party sponsor.
2021 Arkansas QSO Party by Bob Harder, W0BH
With the four deep-cycle batteries recharged from the Nebraska QSO Party, the
Astro van was ready to head off on another adventure, this time to Arkansas.
Lorna/k0why and I had run the ARQP once years ago. As I mentioned the weekend
possibility to Lorna, I found out that Saturday was the "Global Big
Day" birding event where birders see how many different species of birds
they can find in one day. She showed me a map of birding hotspots in Arkansas
and we had a plan!
The goal was just to get out and have fun in our respective hobbies. I knew
Connie/K5CM and Pam/N5KW often run Arkansas, so I emailed Connie with our plan
and we found out we might cross paths at some point. Roads in Arkansas are
subject to the hilly Ozarks, so there aren't nearly as many route options as in
the plains states. From our first experience in the ARQP, we learned that it was
best to stay on main roads because secondary roads were often really slow
through the mountains. The final route was a big loop following the freeways
with side excursions when needed. We arrived in Siloam Springs, AR about 9:30pm
minus the forecast thunderstorms.
The morning was cloudy and cool as we headed out early for a birding stop at the
Charlie Craig Fish Hatchery in Benton county, the furthest northwest county in
Arkansas. Sprinkles were a possibility until about 10:00am, and sprinkles it was
as I attached the Hustler vertical stacks to the triple mag-mounts. Lorna
wandered the fish hatchery grounds in what turned out to be one of her two best
stops of the day for birds. As 9:00am rolled around, I tried some CQs on 80m
then on 40m with zero success. The bands seemed to be totally dead. Radio
problems? It didn't seem like it because power and SWR were good. I spotted
myself on FunSpots and finally at 9:16 after we headed down the road a bit,
K9RS, K8MFO and NS2N found me in quick succession and we had our first contacts
in the log, the first of many for these three excellent ops.
The first hour was felt slow, but things improved as 20m opened and we got on
the freeway. The next birding stop was Woolsey Wet Prairie in Washington county,
but it wasn't where GPS said it should be and Lorna said to keep going since she
had stayed longer than scheduled at the fish hatchery. I was fine with the
flexible schedule but we did need to keep moving. Of course I was making
contacts all along including a couple of contacts with N4CD/Bob, also mobile in
the ARQP (who found me).
I-40 follows north of the Arkansas River in northwestern Arkansas. We had a nice
river stop scheduled to finish working Johnson county. Lorna found the first of
several colorful summer tanagers which we don't have in our part of Kansas.
After crossing the river, we stopped at the Logan/Yell county line and it was
fun working Connie across the river at his 4-county line stop. Next up was Holla
Bend National Wildlife Refuge which sits on a nice two-county line with good
radio and birding action combined. Lorna was really pleased to see flocks of
bob-o-links.
After staying lots longer than scheduled at Holla Bend, we continued on to Toad
Suck Park near Conway. We often saw the sign for the park as we headed east or
west on I-40, but this time we wanted to stop. We found a really nice spot on
the river and I had a great run while Lorna took a nap. On the turnaround, a
still sleepy Lorna didn't give the "opposite of a speed bump" the
credit it deserved. Suddenly the van was rocking violently back and forth, the
radio cut out, and there were big clanks on the roof of the van. When the
proverbial dust settled, I saw part of my Hustler vertical out the side window
which was probably not a good thing! It turned out that one triple mag-mount
had let go (quite the feat) and tipped on it's side as had my VHF mag-mount. No
real damage (except to Lorna's ego) as I was able to put everything back in
place, guy wires and all. The radio sometimes cuts out going over bumps due to a
loose connection I have yet to find, but it came back up as well and we
continued on our way.
The only other Murphy moment came when I switched batteries. My deep-cycle
batteries usually run 6-7 hours before the power booster tells me they're
getting too low. This time I switched out early since I had two spares along
besides the one that runs the electronics and logging computer all day. The
fresh battery worked fine for a few contacts, but suddenly it couldn't handle
the current and went to 8V during transmit. I thought perhaps my connection was
bad, so I reconnected it and tried again with the same result. The battery was
about 5 years old, so it just picked now to quit. I connected my other spare
battery and we were back in business. Worse case scenario would have been to use
the van battery, but that puts more noise in the system with the van running
which I avoid with the external batteries. Spares are good. I also had my
complete spare radio setup along, but didn't need it this time around.
After leaving Toad Suck Park, we headed back to the freeway to make up some time
(now two hours behind). I warned everyone on FunSpots of short time in the
counties, but we were still able to make lots of contacts on both CW and SSB. I
left some pileups as I crossed lines, but that just created new pileups, so some
really fun operating the last few hours. I want to thank you all for helping me
out by just making one or two quick calls and then listening. Really well done,
everyone! Usually I can pick out a complete call or catch a few call letters and
we can go from there. On CW, the off-center callers have a big advantage in a
pileup even if they aren't as strong, so give that a try and see if it works for
you.
We had planned a detour to Pike and Clark counties, but took the shortcut back
through the mountains instead. Signals were up and down like we were and travel
was slow, so we didn't make it to our last county, fortunately not a rare one. I
try really hard to complete my planned route, but Arkansas is a curvy place with
good birds :- ) Stop time came with 60 dark miles still to go to get back to our
hotel in Ft. Smith. It felt really good to arrive about 10:30 .. tired, but safe
and sound.
Stats
Operated 10.1 hours, 1192 Qs, 305 unique calls, 12 dupes, 495 ARQP miles (1156
total miles).
States not worked (7) : AK HI ME MT ND SD UT
Canadian mults worked (4) : BC ON QC SK
NE worked (15) : BAXT BENT CRAW FRNK FULT GREN JOHN LOGN
OUAC POPE PULA SEBA SHRP WASH YELL
DX worked (7) : OM UA HA JA YT HP OK
W0BH Rate (includes dupes) : 118/hr
County Breakdown (in visited order, no dupes)
01 BENT 50 Benton
02 WASH 96 Washington
03 CRAW 48 Crawford
04 FRNK 54 Franklin
05 JOHN 65 Johnson
06 LOGN 91 Logan
07 YELL 130 Yell
08 POPE 67 Pope
09 CONW 28 Conway
10 FAUL 117 Faulkner
11 PERR 85 Perry
12 PULA 42 Pulaski
13 SALI 36 Saline
14 HSPR 69 Hot Springs
15 GARL 70 Garland
16 MTGY 86 Montgomery
17 SCOT 46 Scott
Special thanks to my top scorers:
39: NS2N
38: K9RS
36: OM2VL
34: W0PI
27: K3WJV K8MFO N8II
23: W8PI
20: KA6BIM N6MU
17: K0HNC KV8Q
16: AA4TI
14: NE8P VE7CV WA1SAY
12: K1RO NX3A
11: AC5O K8TE K9CW WB9HFK
10: AC0W
NE Mobiles Worked: N4CD K5CM
Bonus Counties: 17
W0BH Award Winners
----------------- First Place --- Very Honorable Mention ---
Most overall Qs - NS2N/39 ------- K9RS/38 ---- OM2VL/36
Most CW Qs ------ K8MFO/27 ------ NS2N/25 ---- W0PI/22
Most PH Qs ------ K9RS/17 ------- OM2VL/15 --- NS2N/14
Most counties --- NS2N/17 ------- K8MFO K9RS OM2VL W0PI / 16
------------------------------------------------------------
Afterwards
I know Don, K5DB, ran this QSO party for years. He stepped down this year but I
still wanted to thank him for all his hard work. Thanks to the new Arkansas QSO
Party Team for filling the void and special thanks to Kevin/K5KVN for putting
the FunSpots link on the ARQP home page after I emailed him with the suggestion.
It was well used and really helped out!
The 2021 Kansas QSO Party is scheduled for August 28-29, the last weekend in
August. With 105 counties, we need all the help we can get, so mobiles, head
this way! Everyone else, thanks for the Qs in Arkansas, and see you down the
log in 2021 ..
73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why
QPC #23
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