California QSO Party - 2020
Call: K6M
Operator(s): K4XU W6RA AE7EU W7JHR
Station: K6M
Class: M/MCntyExp HP
QTH: Modoc
Operating Time (hrs): 21:30
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
160: 1
80: 136 120
40: 250 58
20: 603 292
15: 3
10:
6:
2:
--------------------
Total: 993 470 Mults = 57 Total Score = 223,269
Club:
Comments:
This was our 22nd expedition to the Timber Mountain Fire Lookout in the Modoc
National Forest. One might imagine that we'd have this gig down to a science.
Well, we are 22 years older and the place has changed. It has been fire-proofed:
all the brush, grass and weeds are gone. And one of our favorite trees removed
as it was interfering with the lookout's 360° view. We had a crew of five: one
deaf groupie 82, one newbie 71, our cook and IT guru 41, one new contester 71,
and old contester me 73.
The primary HF antenna is a TA33 on a 45 ft crank-up trailer tower. The
secondary is an old (1965) TA33jr that is on its last legs. It failed. The LF
antenna is an 80m OCF between an existing 60ft repeater tower and a 40ft
military mast running due N-S. But the lookout was still manned and his fifth
wheel trailer was parked where the mast goes. So the OCF ran to the top of the
trailer tower in a NE-SW direction. The end of the OCF was 20 feet from the
beam. We also use a 40m wire GP which gives us two antennas on HF and 40m. Most
of the crew folds at 9PM so 80m is done on one rig only.
We usually have a trailer for each of the two operating positions but one had to
cancel at the last moment so we used a large tent. That also cost us our #2
contest op. Note: Windy mountain makes for bad VOX in a tent. Both positions
used K3S/KPA500 radios which have proven very stout in this and FD operations.
But this time we had "HI RF" warnings on the second station in the
tent located on the only flat space and under the beam. There was mucho rf in
the shack using the OCF - serious RF burns on the paddle base. I put a 12"
coax bead choke on the OCF feedline and it got very hot, boil spit hot!
Long story short, we made just 87 QSOs from the tent and 1384 from the trailer.
I made 87% of the total. This hardly qualifies as a Multi-multi op. We never
found a VE8/VY1. The last two mults were AB and ND ~03Z Saturday night - both
from the tent! The score was one percent better than last year. That should be
enough to allow quite a few county sweeps. See you all next year.
73,
Dick K4XU
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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