Michigan QSO Party
Call: K8MR/M
Operator(s): AF8A, K8MR
Station: K8MR/M
Class: Mobile Multi-Op LP
QTH: 25 Counties
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 51 4
40: 577 61
20: 310 56
15: 15 6
10: 0 0
--------------------
Total: 953 127 CW Mults = 69 Ph Mults = 35 Total Score = 211,432
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
By county, in order of appearance:
County CW SSB
MONR 22 2
WASH 33 2
JACK 35 2
INGH 36 2
EATO 33 3
CLIN 40 14
SHIA 48 5
SAGI 20 1
GRAT 41 7
MIDL 48 10
ISAB 39 8
CLAR 39 13
GLAD 43 0
BAY 38 1
AREN 52 10
OGEM 49 11
ROSC 38 8
CRAW 53 4
OTSE 30 5
ANTR 35 6
KALK 26 2
GRTR 17 0
WESF 27 1
OSCE 39 2
LAKE 39 4
NEWA 33 4
Multipliers:
ST/P 40 24
CTY 29 11
This year my regular driver of late, AC8E, was not able to do the trip to
Michigan, so I invited Gary, AF8A, a veteran of the roads of Michigan, to join
me. We had hoped for good weather to be able to follow up on Sunday with a bike
ride on the White Pine Trail rail-trail, but as everyone noted, that weather did
not happen! This was only the second mobile trip I've done where I split
operating time with my driving partner. Not as much fun driving as running, but
with $4/gallon gas it was good to be able to split the costs in addition to the
operating time.
I had a long day on the road. I left my QTH before 7 am to drive to Sharon, PA,
to pick up my mother to attend a bridal shower for my daughter. Back home at
9:30am, to switch vehicles to the decked out, ready to go minivan. Reached the
MI border about 2 minutes before the contest started, and had a few glitches in
the opening minutes. But got things straightened out and off and running about
two minutes in.
How wonderful to finally have good propagation! Great pileups on 40 and 20,
some successful moves to 15 meters. One QSY from 15 CW to 15 SSB failed because
there were no clear frequencies on 15 SSB! Forty meters was working in-state, so
very little activity needed or used on 80/75. Things turned into a rate fest, so
we spent less time than usual scraping up MI counties, especially on SSB. This
broke the QSO record for MiQP mobiels, but we needed about 11 more mults to
break the all time MI mobile score record from 2003.
Mobile phone contesting is always tough. Probably 75% of my phone qsos were
moves from CW, typically to 14151 or 7130/7133. As time goes on I am beginning
to think the best way to generate phone activity is to just pick up from a busy
CW run and move to SSB, hoping lots of those guys in the CW pileup will follow
me to SSB.
Lots of fun following, and being part of, the races between various serious
competitors. I missed the usual shootout between the big MI multis, K8XXX and
K8MQP.
MiQP is my emotional beginning of spring. Often in MiQP I see the last snow of
the year, usually lying in a shaded embankment up north in some place like
Cheboygan county. This year MiQP hopefully will be my last snow, but instead we
had the most snowfall I've encountered on a mobile trip. Snow started about
sundown in Crawford county, and continued quite heavily through Osceola county.
Not much was sticking on the relatively warm roads on US131, but with strong
cross winds it made for extra care and less than full freeway speed. We had to
chip some ice off the antennas when we took them off the van Sunday morning.
Thanks to all who participated, and to the faithful gang waiting for us as we
moved from county to county. We hope to see you all in the Ohio QSO Party on
August 27. I may also show up for the West Virginia test on June 18, if I can
arrange to combine things with a bicycle riding driver.
73 - Jim K8MR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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