Nebraska QSO Party - 2023
Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH
Station: W0BH
Class: Mobile/Portable LP
QTH: KS
Operating Time (hrs): 13.9
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs FT8 Qs
------------------------------------
160:
80:
40: 109 45
20: 517 387
15: 115 54
10: 0 2
6:
2:
UHF:
------------------------------------
Total: 741 488 0 0 Mults = 58 FTn Mults = 0 Total Score =
228,520
Club:
Comments:
Score includes a 2x power multiplier. No QSOs were made with KA0BOJ for bonus
points. My log has been submitted to the QSO party sponsor.
2023 Nebraska QSO Party by Bob Harder, W0BH
As in our 2021 run, the goal of this trip was to put out some Nebraska counties
during the day and catch the famous Sandhill crane migration along the Platte
River near Kearney. I tweaked our 27 county effort that looped us north of
Kearney on Saturday, overnight in Kearney, then a southern county return.
Unfortunately, the 150,000 reported cranes that were here a week ago headed
north during the week and there was not a crane to be found!
We started Saturday with a light mist/drizzle and a strong north wind. In the
rain and as they age, I've found that Hustler mobile antennas have a tendency to
collect moisture in the resonators leading to a high SWR. At a truck stop near
the Nebraska border, I tried electrical taping them around the edges of the
plastic coating before I put them on. I had no SWR problems although the drizzle
stopped soon afterwards. However, my fingers needed some warmth before I could
run the computer keyboard or the keyer!
The actual run was very smooth with cloudy (i.e. perfect) QSO party weather on
Saturday and sun on Sunday. We'd debugged the route in 2021, so the few route
changes were nice improvements. Radio conditions on Saturday were tough at first
but improved throughout the day. Sunday was much better with good conditions on
40m thru 15m most of the day.
Participation seemed to be off considerably from what I remember in 2021 as the
rate stat shows later in this writeup. I had a dedicated group of
"riders" lead by John/N6MU. John requested that we QSY 20/15/CW/SSB
from each of my counties and that lead to a phenomenal 97 contacts with him in
my log. Several ops followed along on some of the QSYs, but only OM2VL also
requested them from time to time.
It's really fun to go "around the bands," so if I'm not in the middle
of a pileup, please feel free to request another band and I'm happy to oblige
for anyone who asks. It takes me about 2 seconds to switch to any of my normal
CW/SSB frequencies since I don't have to tune. I did try to put out each county
on 40m but got few takers during the day, even though the band appeared to be
open. 10m didn't seem to be open to the US this time around.
My only Murphy moment came when I hit the "dit dit W0BH" key on my
keyboard and it didn't work. I pressed it harder and finally got it to work, but
I practically had to pound it. I did that for a bit and also used my key until
the pileup subsided, then did some troubleshooting. When I popped the top of the
key off, I could press the switch and it worked fine. A closer look with a light
revealed a broken piece of plastic jamming the switch cover. I took that out,
put on the key top and we were back in business. The plastic came from the
plastic case which broke in the lower right corner of my old Dell laptop. Pieces
flew and one ended up in my keyboard. As the case broke, I got hit in the face
by another piece just before but ignored it until the broken key forced me away
from the pileup. Such is the excitement of mobile contesting!
Since Nebraska stations were so hard to come by and to make slow times more
interesting (or when requested), Lorna made SSB contacts and I occasionally put
out her call on CW. Since I use a headset and she uses a mic, I had to make sure
I didn't log the contact while she was transmitting on 20m. RF (just on 20m)
sometimes crashes the computer and scrambles the log file. I've never been able
to eliminate the problem so I've learned to not to do that when I'm
transmitting. Lorna sometimes holds the mic button in for a bit after she talks,
so we crashed the computer more times than usual. When this first happened years
ago, I tried to reload the log file after a reboot and it crashed the computer
again. I then analyzed the scramble and wrote a log descrambling program, so now
it's just a matter of typing in a DOS command and I'm back in business. I've
also written programs to change counties out, so all the CW messages reflect the
new county or counties and the log file is automatically backed up. County
changes can happen almost instantly.
The State QSO Party Challenge has really helped boost QSO party activity and
I've had fun participating by trying to make contacts and turning in a log for
each of the 47 QSO parties. That can become a problem from a mobile. This
weekend included the Michigan, Ontario, Quebec and North Dakota QSO Parties. MI
and ON were easy to find, but QC and ND had me worried since the rules require
two contacts from each QSO party in order to qualify. I tried really hard to
hear stations during slow times and finally worked VA2MM on SSB. Much later,
still without my second contact, I found him again and requested a QSY to CW so
I got my second contact. ND was a different story. A number of stations told me
where to find WA0CSL on 20m, but I was too close to work her. I finally asked
K5CM to relay a request for a QSY to 40m and she did! I worked her from a
two-county line for two contacts and the ND mult, but of course one contact
would be a dupe in the NDQP. No further NDs appeared, so unless I can get an
exception from WN4AFP, I'm out of luck! The irony is that she can count both my
contacts for the NEQP if she's participating in the SQPC. I plan to turn in a
NDQP log even with one hard-earned ND QSO :)
Stats
Operated 13.9 hours, 1282 Qs, 297 unique calls, 53 dupes, 590 NEQP miles (907
total miles).
States not worked (7) : AK HI MD ME RI VT WY
Canadian mults worked (6) : AB BC MB ON QC SK
NE worked (2) : DAKO SEWA
DX worked (7) : DL HA LA LZ OM SP JA
W0BH Rate (includes dupes) : 92/hr (same route in 2021, 128/hr)
Sat 784 Qs
Sun 498 Qs
County Breakdown (in visited order, no dupes)
01 THAY 65 Thayer
02 FILL 31 Fillmore
03 YORK 42 York
04 POLK 48 Polk
05 BUTL 45 Butler
06 PLAT 42 Platt
07 MERR 39 Merrick
08 NANC 37 Nance
09 HOWA 49 Howard
10 GREE 55 Greeley
11 VLLY 40 Valley
12 SHRM 49 Sherman
13 CUST 40 Custer
14 BUFF 102 Buffalo
15 DAWS 102 Dawson
16 GOSP 71 Gosper
17 FRON 50 Frontier
18 FURN 52 Furnas
19 HRLN 32 Harlan
20 PHEL 34 Phelps
21 KEAR 47 Kearney
22 FRNK 31 Franklin
23 WEBS 24 Webster
24 ADMS 16 Adams
25 CLAY 20 Clay
26 NUCK 29 Nuckolls
27 JEFF 37 Jefferson
Special thanks to my top scorers:
97: N6MU
47: KA6BIM
46: OM2VL
39: K5CM
37: K4YT
35: W9DC
28: WB9HFK
25: NS2N
21: N8II
20: K9CW N6KZ W5XG
18: KF6HI LA8OM
15: W7GF
14: NI8W
13: KE6GFI
12: HA8IB KC3X
11: W0PI
10: AA4DD N5KW W4SIG W8CAG
NE Mobiles Worked: none
W0BH Award Winners
----------------- First Place ----- Very Honorable Mention --
Most overall Qs - N6MU/97 --- KA6BIM/47 ---- OM2VL/46
Most CW Qs ------ N6MU/52 --- OM2VL/30 ----- KA6BIM/27
Most PH Qs ------ N6MU/45 --- KA6BIM/20 ---- OM2VL/16
Most counties --- N6MU/27 --- OM2VL/26 ----- K4YT/24
-------------------------------------------------------------
Afterwards
Nebraska is such a beautiful state to mobile in and we enjoyed it as always. We
hope to see more of it by going to different parts next year. Thanks to the
sponsors and all participants for a fun run!
The 2023 Kansas QSO Party is scheduled for August 26-27, the last weekend in
August. With 105 counties, we need all the help we can get, so mobiles, head
this way! Everyone else, thanks for the Qs in Nebraska, and see you down the
log in 2023 ..
73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why
QPC #16
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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