Kansas QSO Party - 2023
Call: N0U
Operator(s): NU0Q
Station: N0U
Class: Mobile SO CW LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80: 2
40: 178
20: 1137
15:
10:
6:
----------------------------
Total: 1317 0 0 Mults = 53 Total Score = 209,503
Club:
Comments:
We missed last year due to car trouble, so we got a newer car this year. Turns
out, it has less RF noise. And I found a way to ground the mag-mounts to the
car frame. I had a Little Tarheel on 20 meters and a Little Tarheel II with the
larger whip on 40m and 80m. With two antennas, I could switch bands quickly.
With these improvements, I managed to achieve my best score ever in the Kansas
QSO Party. I used an ICOM IC-7100 running about 70 watts. The logging program
was CQ/X by NO5W. Thanks again to Chuck for the free logging software.
We planned to start our route in Franklin County, which was strategically
selected so that we could share a slab of BBQ ribs Friday night at Guy and Mae's
Tavern. Since Karen, my wife and driver, doesn't like to drive at night, we
wanted to end Saturday on the west side of Kansas to prolong the sunset. Since
we wanted to drive back to Iowa on Sunday evening, we planned the end of our
route in the northeast corner of the state. We missed the turn to go to
Wabaunsee County, but we had extra time on Saturday, so we detoured to pick up
Trego, Gove, and Logan. We also had time on Sunday to get to Nemaha. So, we
ran 29 counties total. Thank you to Karen, who drove 500 miles on Saturday and
300 miles on Sunday!
The pile-ups were wonderfully brutal. I want to thank all the callers who made
this so fun. A few times, I just sat back and laughed, thinking that it was
impossible to pick any calls out of the mess. But each time, I refocused and
tried my best to get everyone in the log. I know a lot of callers gave up.
It's interesting that the same folks seemed to break through the pile each time.
A few were successful with brute force (power, antenna, or maybe lucky
propagation?), but most of the successful callers were not the strongest
stations, but were skillful in the timing of their call and especially their
choice of tranmit frequency offset. After I worked all the stations that were
slightly off frequency, I was left with an almost solid tone of callers all on
the exact same frequency, and that was challenging to deal with.
There were some counties where 20 meters was so busy that I never had time to go
to 40 meters. But a few times, I ran out of callers on both bands. At one
point on Saturday, I tried to go to 15 meters, but couldn't get the antenna to
tune. As it turns out, I was tuning the wrong antenna. No wonder I couldn't
hear the noise increase as I got close to resonance! We had to pull off the
road for me to figure this out. And then I had to retune both antennas. So, we
lost some time, and I never did get on 15 meters. I did try 80 meters late on
Saturday, but the sun was still up, so there wasn't much activity yet. Two
people managed to find me before I went back to 40 meters. Sitting in the hotel
parking lot after supper, I looked for Hawaii and was barely able to work them
through the local S9 noise.
As usual, I had computer problems. For some reason, the USB connection from the
computer to the IC-7100 USB port kept dropping out. The disconnection each time
was brief, but it locked up the logging program, essentially requiring a reboot
every time I changed bands. After lunch on Saturday, I switched to the older
approach of using the remote jack on the IC-7100 with a West Mountain Radio
RIGTalk interface, and everything worked after that.
Final QSO count: 1317. (1137 on 20m, 178 on 40m, 2 on 80m.) Most frequently
worked: N5RZ(46), VE3YT(26), N6MU(25), W5LXS(24), VE5KS(23), W9DC(22), K9CW(22),
OM2VL(19), K4YT(18), NS2N(17), SP5SA(17), N8II(16), AF5J(16). Got 47 states
(missed AK, RI, WY) and 5 provinces (NB, ON, MB, SK, BC). My best QSO rate was
in Jewell County (29 QSOs in first 10 minutes = 174/hr). Most QSOs in a county
on Saturday: Clay(61), Sheridan(56), Ottawa(52), Pottawatomie(51). Most QSOs in
a county on Sunday: Smith(70), Norton(68), Phillips(61), Republic(58).
Thanks to W0BH for organizing. Thanks to the other mobiles, rovers, and other
Kansas stations that make it worthwhile for so many others to spend their
weekend giving us contacts. And many thanks to all the callers from outside
Kansas who kept me busy.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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