North Carolina QSO Party
Call: K3TD
Operator(s): K4QPL
Station: K3TD
Class: Mobile SO Mixed LP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80: 219 0 0
40: 510 0 0
20: 28 0 0
15: 0 0 0
10: 0 0 0
6: 0 0 0
2: 0 0 0
----------------------------
Total: 757 0 0 Mults = 59 Total Score = 134,039
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Coming off the great SC QSO Party on Saturday we didn't know if we'd be able to
keep riding for another 10+ hours in NC. But a good night in a hotel near
Charlotte and a good breakfast before heading up I-77 to be in Iredell County
(To get our "I" for Carolina and hopefully to have a pileup giving
them out) got us in the mood to do it again.
Other than a USB port in the laptop finally giving up from rough roads (We had
taped it in SC)and having to make a quick port install in another port, Murphy
left us alone.
20 was again a disappointment. During the EU opening we worked a few DX and
later some west coasties, but there really wasn't much point in spending time
there when 40 was acting like 20 for most of the day.
This weekend were the first mobile contests where we had great telnet from
beginning to end with Tad's wifi hotspot feeding my laptop. (Wait until his
company sees the data minutes!! Fortunately he's with a communications company)
Was great to see all the spots coming in and to see all the active counties and
where the other mobiles were. As with most contests the rate boost was immediate
when we were spotted. Thanks for all manual spots giving out county
activations.
As in SC, activity and rate started slower and picked up as the afternoon and
evening came and 80M came into its own again. Again it was hard to believe how
well we seemed to be getting out both DX and east of the Rockies. I just wish
there was some way to match up receiving quality. Tad nixed the idea of dragging
a 200' B.O.G. (Beverage On Ground)behind the SUV! We get enough strange looks
with the hulking 160-10M Tarheel Screwdriver in the trailer hitch.
Anyhow, the score above is the raw score from N1MM without any bonus points
calculated. We'll leave that to the official scorers but our intention was to
host the party for all of our out of state and DX friends and our own score was
never really considered and we never took the time to S&P mults.
We activated 18 counties with extra time for Columbus County to give as many
opportunities for bonus points. The rest of the time we were trying to manage
our time in each county to match the pileups, trying to rush through the big
counties but also occasionally stopping short of a county line until the pileup
diminished. Unfortunately we couldn't do anything about time running out for the
contest in NASh county and we still had a pileup when the clock hit 0100Z. The
pileup was huge and by that time my concentration was waning from 10 hours in
the chair stoked by trail mix, Gatorade and whatever other junk food Tad would
throw back into my cage!
As with South Carolina we put all of our energies into CW as SSB is not very
productive in comparison. Tad did another great job of navigating and meeting
our target of ending the contest just before reaching well-served WAKe county.
In fact, we left NASh and rolled into WAKe just two minutes after the contest
ended.
Finally, congratulations to Marty and all the great organizing group for a well
planned, publicized and managed QSO Party. Thanks to everyone in NC for
supporting it so well and activating so many counties with special thanks for
all the bonus stations.
And most of all, thanks to our wonderful North American and DX friends who
followed us around North Carolina and gave us those exciting pileups. We hope
you enjoyed the party as much as we enjoyed throwing it.
See you next year!
73,
Tad, K3TD
Jim, K4QPL
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