Kansas QSO Party
Call: N0R
Operator(s): N5NA, NO5W
Station: N0R
Class: Mobile MOST LP
QTH: KS
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80:
40: 330
20: 1054 9
15: 6
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------
Total: 1390 9 0 Mults = 50 Total Score = 209,400
Club:
Comments:
It's about midnight and we (N5NA and NO5W) just got back to El Dorado, AR after
a six hour drive from southeast Kansas where we went to play mobile contesting
as N0R in the Kansas QSO Party.
If you're the least bit curious you might wonder how/why a couple of
five-landers from locations as diverse and distant as New Orleans, LA and
Midland, TX would decide to meet up in El Dorado, AR and motor up to Kansas for
a total drive of about 1700+ round trip miles (not including the drive from New
Orleans and Midland!)to help put thirty-six counties on the air in the Kansas
QSO Party.
Well you might say it started with each of us finding Kansas maps in our mail
boxes a couple of years ago along with an invitation from W0BH, complete with
lodging, to come up to the Sunflower State and spend a weekend helping create
some noise and activate a few of the 105 counties during the KS QP. Or you
might also say it started even before that with W0BH and Lorna coming down a
number years from Kansas to cover the Texas Panhandle in the Texas QSO Party
and in the process creating a lot of excitement in that event. Even one of
those years Bob, unfortunately, got an opportunity to operate tow-truck mobile
when their aging van decided to balk somewhere in the Panhandle â?" now that's
commitment!. Those things coupled with an extreme, some might even say insane,
enthusiasm for mobile contesting on the part of the five-landers sealed the
deal and meant that it would be only a matter of time before we would decide to
â??stop cutting baitâ?? and actually â??go fishingâ??. And of course there was
also the attraction of operating behind the mask of a 1x1 callsign.
So this was the year, and hopefully the start of an annual thing, if those
pesky fuel prices don't rise to a point that would make a trip like this
prohibitive. And it was a good year with pretty good propagation and
participation although you can never have enough of either of those. Operations
went well in N5NA's truck which was virtually free of any vehicle noise (the
same could not be said about many of the small towns we went through where the
power line noise was off the charts), an excellent setup of a K3/100 strapped
down to the console, a really fine Scorpion antenna mounted in the truck bed,
and a laptop running GPS-enabled mobile contesting software, CQ/X. Switching
operator and driver positions about every 2-3 hours we managed to keep a fresh
operator in the chair resulting in the following statistics.
The following counties were activated with indicated number of QSOs:
Bourbon(74), Linn(70), Franklin(62), Elk(59), Anderson(57), Morris(54),
Wabaunsee(51), Crawford(50), Cowley(50), Lyon(49), Greenwood(48), Clay(47),
Miami(45), Ottawa(42), Wilson(42), Butler(41), Chautauqua(39), Coffey(37),
Chase(37), McPherson(36), Osage(35), Allen(33), Montgomery(33), Cloud(33),
Neosho(33), Labette(28), Saline(28), Woodson(28), Dickinson(27),
Pottawatomie(27), Marion(26), Sedgwick(25), Geary(22), Harvey(18), Riley(18),
Cherokee(15).
The counties with the highest initial ten minute hourly rate were:
Franklin(186), Crawford(174), Osage(174), Coffey(174), Cloud(168), Morris(168),
Anderson(168), Bourbon(162), Ottawa(162), Greenwood(156), Allen(156),
Neosho(150)
Thanks to the following stations for contributing more than half the QSOs:
N6MU(39), N5DO(38), NT2A(34), W4UCZ(32), WA2VYA(26), W4UT(25), K5WAF(25),
WA6KHK(22), ND3R(22), NS5J(21), WA8REI(21), NN4K(20), KN4Y(19), AC0BH(19),
N4UF(19), DL3GA(19), N3KR(18), W4GDG(17), DK2OY(17), K4AMC(17), YV5OIE(17),
N4NX(16), K4YT(16), OE5KE(15), VE2KOT(15), VA3XOV(15), KC0DEB(15), W2CVW(14),
VE6BMX(14), K1TKL(13), N4PN(13), KS4X(13), W1END(12), W8CAG(12), VE3KZ(12),
DL8USA(12), VE7CV(12), KO1U(11)
Along with all those good stats there were disappointments, lessons learned,
and things that didn't work exactly as designed.
1. On the disappointment side the logistics of our route and the need to enter
and exit KS from the southeast meant that we were not able to take W0BH up on
the lodging invitation. That would have been fun and hopefully at some point in
the future will actually happen.
2. On the potentially disastrous side there was the matter of the loosening of
the large bolt attaching the Scorpion to the truck bed/fender. Fortunately N5NA
noticed the swaying antenna in the rear-view mirror and, fortunately for our
continued operation, had a tool along which allowed the problem to be
addressed.
3. Regarding lessons learned we discovered, by experience, that when you're
down to the last county, and you're the only station activating that county,
and there are less than 10-15 minutes remaining, and you're approaching a town
do not, under any circumstances, enter that town but stay well on the out
skirts until the party's over. Otherwise you might lose 20-30 Qs to the noise.
Thanks to all those that called us, especially to those that called a bit off
frequency or in some way distinguished themselves from the thundering pile, and
to those that waited patiently when we were trying to complete a QSO with
another station. And of course a big thank you to the organizers and especially
to Bob W0BH for coordinating the event.
To see where we were when we worked you check out our "Log on a Map" created by
CQ/X at http://goo.gl/maps/S3JIv
Finally we hope to hear you in the Texas QSO Party September 29-30. Will this
be the year that a sweep of all 254 counties is possible?
73,
Alan, N5NA
Chuck, NO5W
aka N0R for a weekend.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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