Texas QSO Party
Call: W5CT
Operator(s): W5MJ K5PI
Station: W5MJ
Class: Multi-Op Mobile HP
QTH: Texas
Operating Time (hrs): 17.25
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 58
40: 870 204
20: 581 11
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 1509 215 0 Mults = 111 Total Score = 586,227
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
This was the sixth QSO Party outing with Madison W5MJ and me operating. Steve
WK5S once again kept us on our route and out of the ditch. :-) He also used an
earbud to keep an ear on the action, and provided A+ tech support. We've had
the good fortune to have some others with us in past years, but this year it was
just the Three Amigos.
Most years we try to do something a little bigger – this year we just tried to
do things a little better. We've been doing two transmitters since 2015, and
we're starting to get the bugs worked out. Multi-transmitter mobile is no walk
in the park – there WILL be inter-station interference, and sometimes it can
be pretty serious. But with good antennas and coax, band pass filters, and some
attention to detail, it can work well.
To do things better, we reworked all the cabling. Everything now uses good
quality shielded cable, and we took off all the "hamfest
special"torroids and used only mix 31 snap-ons that are designed to block
RF at *HF* frequencies. We also used double shielded coax for most of the RF
jumpers. All this made quite a difference. Over 18 hours of operating, we had
zero GPS or Winkey issues. One radio had no interruption in communication with
the laptop; the other had only a couple, which were quickly resolved (no reboot
required).
We used the same antennas – a Tarheel 100A and a Bug Catcher. Both needed a
bit of cleaning and tightnening which took a couple extra work days.
This year, we changed our antenna strategy a bit. We use the Tarheel for 40 so
we could move between CW and SSB. The Bug Catcher doesn't have enough bandwidth
on 40 to cover both modes. It does, however, have enough bandwidth to cover the
entire 20M band. So we moved the tap and used the Bug Catcher on 20. As it got
dark, we swapped the coil and put the Bug Catcher on 80 CW.
We had the Ameritron ALS-500 amp hooked up. We used it for most of the day on
Saturday, but when we had a bit of trouble with it on Saturday afternoon, we
just turned it off for the rest of the contest.
We changed our operator strategy a bit. Madison took 20 and 80 this year. He
had a microphone and footswitch, but reported that the knob on his radio just
wouldn't turn to the right. :-) I worked 40 and while I consistently found
better rate on CW, I'm pretty sure I spent at least a few minutes on SSB in each
of our counties. Over time, we developed a "fan club" that would be
good for at least 8-10 SSB QSOs. It was nice to work W5KFT, who completed work
on some antennas at his NM QTH just in time for TQP.
Conditions didn't seem very good. The biggest problem was noise. There was an
S5-S8 atmospheric roar on 40M all weekend. I kept the DSP cranked way up, which
helped a lot with signal-to-noise, but came with some digital artifacts.
Madison also had a high noise floor on 20 and had to contend with the harmonic
from 40M. We got nice compliments on our transmit signal, but we just couldn't
hear well this weekend.
We made 36 of our planned 37 counties. We missed the turn for Erath, but it was
probably for the best since we lost about a half hour a little later when we had
to stop and tinker with the Bug Catcher. We also lost about 20 minutes in
swapping out the Bug Catcher coil Saturday evening. Somehow in the packing or
unpacking, we knocked the tap off the coild, so we had to pull out the analyzer
and set the resonant point again.
Activity seemed down this year, both fixed and mobile. N5RZ did a mobile
operation and was easy to find on Saturday. We also worked N5NA/M several
times. WT5NA/M gets the prize, though, for working hardest to complete a set of
QSOs with us on 40 SSB. We crossed a county line during one, so were able to
give him a couple mults for his effort. We missed the competition from W0BH/M
this year, although Bob gave us a few Qs on Sunday. NO5W called us regularly on
Sunday, but we sure missed his FB mobile operation. Hope you'll be back on the
road soon, Chuck!
Robert K5PI
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