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[RTTY] NW0L M/S HP ND ARRL RTTY ROUNDUP

To: <rtty@contesting.com>
Subject: [RTTY] NW0L M/S HP ND ARRL RTTY ROUNDUP
From: aa5au@bellsouth.net (Don Hill AA5AU)
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 21:55:00 -0600
My vote for DX-pedition of the year already!!!  And we haven't even made
it to Parody Island yet!

Way to go guys.  Can't wait for the "rest of the story"!

73, Don AA5AU

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marty Tippin" <martyt@pobox.com>
To: <rtty@contesting.com>; "KC DX CLUB" <kcdxc@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 8:19 PM
Subject: [RTTY] NW0L M/S HP ND ARRL RTTY ROUNDUP


> Just back from our trek to the ChillyLands but wanted to get a score 
> reported. I'll have lots more details about the trip, including pictures, 
> on a web site that I'll put together in the next week or two (more likely 
> next week than this). Details to be posted on the reflector when I get it 
> done.
> 
> But in the meantime, here's the nitty gritty:
> 
> 
> Callsign:   NW0L
> Class:     Mult-Single HP
> Operators: NW0L, AE9B, W0ZAP, K0LW
> QTH:       ND
> Operating Time (hrs): 24
> 
>   Band  QSOs
> ------------
>     80:  190
>     40:  180
>     20:  372
>     15:  368
>     10:  237
> ------------
> Total: 1347
> 
> State/Prov = 57  Countries = 57
> 
> Total Score = 153,558 (subject to revision of course)
> 
> Missed DE, NWT and YUK. Best hours were 1900Z and 0000Z at 80 Qs; worst was 
> 1300Z at 13 Qs.
> 
> 
> 
> Short version of some soapbox comments (which makes me wonder what the long 
> version is going to look like...):
> 
> This was an absolute blast!
> 
> We left Kansas City early Thursday morning, loaded to the gills with 
> radios, amps, antennas, about a thousand feet of coax, gloves, hats, boots, 
> cover-alls, long underwear, food, more food and still more food. Stopped 
> en-route at Burghardt Amateur Center in Watertown, SD, and seemed to catch 
> them off guard -- I guess they don't get many warm bodies visiting the 
> showroom. We also had to stop at a farm supply for some Bag Balm (query 
> AE9B for details if you need them). And I wanted to stop by Mount Marty 
> College but the other boys wouldn't have it, so I'll be forever left 
> wondering about what might have been...
> 
> Arrived in Hankinson, ND at about 6:30pm and immediately went to work 
> setting up radios and a wire antenna so we could get on the air. We stayed 
> at a small (but relatively well-equipped) cottage next to a beautiful 
> bed-and-breakfast, located next to a fairly large lake. (side note: I've 
> never seen people drive trucks out onto the lake to do ice fishing before. 
> They're strange folks, those northerners...)
> 
> I really had no idea what the weather would be like, but I knew we wouldn't 
> need our Bermuda shorts. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad -- highs around 30F 
> every day, only a few inches of snow on the ground, sunny for part of the 
> time, light winds for the most part and the nights weren't too cold until 
> early Monday morning when we were packing up. It should have been a *lot* 
> colder according to the weather almanac, and it *could* have been snow up 
> to our armpits. Maybe we got lucky, or maybe that global warming thing 
> isn't just a myth.
> 
> Anyway, we were finally on the air by about 8:30pm using a Hy-Gain "tape" 
> dipole at 25 ft, set for 40m and found awesome propagation all over the 
> place so played on CW for a while. Went to bed relatively early and got up 
> the next morning to assemble two triband beams, a 40m 1/4 wave vertical, an 
> 80/160 vertical and re-set the Hy-Gain tape dipole for 80m. The run station 
> beam was at about 40 feet on a military crank-up mast (the kind you see at 
> Dayton) and went up *really* easily; the other was on a slightly different 
> military crank-up mast at 25 ft. The verticals were made from simple Rohn 
> push-up masts with a top coil for the 80/160 antenna. All played extremely 
> well with just a few radials.
> 
> Station consisted of two FT-1000MPs (with a third on standby), two 
> TL-922As, a rats nest of coax, switches and miscellaneous interface wires, 
> and Writelog / MMTTY on a pair of networked laptops. We managed to get 
> internet connectivity (though the manager of the bed and breakfast was a 
> little perplexed at how were going to pay for it -- seems they get internet 
> service from the local telephone company and were worried about who would 
> pay the next bill. I tried to explain we were using MSN but got the "deer 
> in the headlights" look.
> 
> Contest time rolled around the next day and we were off, but without much 
> of a pre-planned strategy other than to get on the air and make Qs as fast 
> as we could. In hindsight, we should have made better use of the second 
> radio, loading up the band map for the run radio to go through on a band 
> change. The contest seemed to go really well for the first day; we shut 
> down with 800 Qs at about 0630Z for the first break but probably should 
> have stayed on longer, as 80m was absolutely packed with stations. Sunday 
> was rough all over - never could get a run going to speak of and the high 
> bands didn't really open to Europe like we expected -- I don't know if 
> being that far north had anything to do with it or not, but it was 
> frustrating. Nearly all stations had deep QSB on 10, 15 and 20 all day 
> Sunday. But we slogged through and did the best we could. The last 30 
> minutes were an absolute bedlam of stations calling on 40m, and several 
> seemed to miss the fact that the contest ended at 00Z (including one who 
> use some obscenities when we explained that the contest was over and thus 
> will need to search for a North Dakota RTTY QSO from someone else...)
> 
> Our score result isn't spectacular but it's also not bad for 4 guys who 
> bag-dragged two entire HF stations 600 miles and set them up in just a few 
> hours. In our own defense, I never expected that we'd go to North Dakota 
> and take a World first place or anything; I just thought it'd be fun to go 
> operate from a "rare" place that's still close to home. And on that count, 
> I was right -- this was more fun than anything radio-related that I can 
> remember ever doing and has really re-energized my enthusiasm for contesting.
> 
> I'd like to thank Tom AE9B, Lee K0LW and Rick W0ZAP for going along with my 
> hare-brained, last-minute idea for this trip and for providing nearly all 
> of the "stuff" we needed to make it happen. Especially K0LW who provided 
> the military crank-up masts and a lot of muscle to put it all up so 
> quickly. Also thanks to everyone who called us in the contest -- if we gave 
> out a new state to any of you, than it was worth the trip.
> 
> Please QSL either direct to my callbook address or via the buro. Direct 
> QSLs received without SASE or IRC will not be answered -- sorry guys, it's 
> just too expensive to make the trip, print QSLs *and* pay for return postage.
> 
> Thanks again and 73,
> 
> de NW0L, AE9B, K0LW and W0ZAP
> 
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