California QSO Party
Call: W6BX
Operator(s): W6GJB K6YL KU6F N3ZZ K9YC K6EU N6RNO
Station: W6BX
Class: M/MCntyExp HP
QTH: California
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160:
80: 158 146
40: 278 146
20: 585 904
15: 264 202
10: 33 27
6:
2:
--------------------
Total: 1318 1425 Mults = 58 Total Score = 393,878
Club: Ridge Runners Radio Club
Comments:
Regular members of our CQP team, N3ZZ, N6RNO, K9YC, and W6GJB were thrilled to
be joined by K6YL, KU6F, and K6EU. K9YC and N3ZZ mostly manned our two CW
stations with relief from K6EU and W6GJB; KU6F and K6YL ran our SSB station. We
all pitched in for setup and teardown.
W6GJB contributed his wonderful contesting trailer, which housed the two CW
stations AND supported antennas for 80, 40, and 20M. We set up a C3SS on a
W6GJB-modified modular army surplus mast (the one built with 4 ft sections) and
a third party tripod adapter. All stations used K3s; both CW stations used
KPA500s, and SSB used Glen's SPE legal limit amp. Running on 120V, it probably
ran about 1.2kW.
N6RNO brought his tower trailer, which supported his KT34 and wire dipoles for
40 and 75M. It was used for the SSB station. The ranch allowed us lots of
separation between antennas -- our setup had SSB's tower trailer about 500 ft
from Glen's contesting trailer.
San Benito county is extremely rural, with very low population density. We set
up on a horse ranch (about 50 miles N of Pinnacles National Park) that boards
and trains horses and rents a half dozen or so nicely appointed cabins. The
owner is an old friend of W6GJB from the time when Glen boarded horses there. We
also had use of a very nice Dining Hall, with showers, toilets, and a full
kitchen. We used it as a community room when we were breaking from setup,
operating, and tear down, and long into the evenings. Most of us arrived
Thursday evening, sipped KU6F's wonderful rum, and retired. Setup was nearly
complete by dark on Friday, with only a few details to finish.
Fairly early in the contest, the K3 in the SSB station started becoming erratic,
and by around 04Z became unusable, because the front panel buttons had somehow
gotten remapped. We couldn't turn on VOX, turn on RIT, and lots of other
functions. SSB shifted to the trailer, using one of the CW stations. Meanwhile,
N6RNO rode to the rescue, tenaciously finding instructions (buried several Tabs
down in the K3 Utility Help) for going back to "ground zero" firmware.
Forty minutes later, the radio was back to normal and on the air, and the second
CW station back on 80M. Monday communications with Elecraft suggested that there
might be a defective button or button controller on the front panel board, that
should be replaced if the problem returns. What really blew our minds is that
the K3 that N3ZZ brought as a spare had the same problem!
By luck, we caught part of the 10M opening. It was my practice to go up to 10M
every hour or two and call CQ for a while. I did that around 1930Z and heard
N6TV working a W3, so I slid down one kHz and called CQ. And alerted the SSB
station. Our last CW 10M QSO was at 2006Z, but SSB kept making QSOs for another
five minutes. The opening covered a lot of area -- we worked VE3, W1, W3, W9,
down to TN, FL, KP4, AL, and TX. From other comments, I learned that the opening
started to SoCal and gradually moved up to us, about 70 miles E of Monterey. I'd
be interested to know how much of the opening we missed!
With stations separated by a city block, we found 2M talkies very useful, both
during setup and while operating.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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