[FQP]FQP Mobile Configurations

[ku8e at bellsouth.net]

  It would be interesting in finding out what all the rovers were using as far a radios/antennas/logging software etc... I switched my configuration for both the GQP and FQP from what we used last year. I am amazed by the good signal reports we have received. The GQP was our big test run and we went with the exact setup for FQP. 

  Here is how K4BAI/m was setup in the car :

  Our station was setup in the back of my Saturn. We used my Kenwood TS850S as the radio. I brought an Icom IC706MKIIG along as a backup. We used K4BAI's Dell laptop running NA and used a W1WEF LPT port keying interface. The laptop was powered by an AC-DC inverter and amazingly we had no computer noise at all.
The files for NA were all setup in advance so we could switch to a new county log quickly. 

  The antenna was a Hustler mobile antenna mounted using a heavy duty truck lip
mount made by Diamond. I have a ground strap going from the mount to a place
in the truck where I scraped the paint away from under a metal bolt. I think the ground was pretty good even though a Saturn doesn't have an all metal body. We used the MO2 mast, which is 54 inches long. On the mast we had the VP1 adapter which allows you to mount 3 resonators. We had the RM-20 (20 meters) , RM-40 (40 meters) and the RM-15 (15 meters) resonators on this adapter. This was all guyed using nylon string. The antennas were all tuned for CW and to go to SSB we had a small MFJ antenna tuner we could switch in/out.

  Everything worked flawlessly except for a few times we had to stop to re-adjust the mobile mount. I don't think it was really designed for the bigger antenna we were using. I might redesign that for next time... I should have some pictures on the web sometime today or tomorrow...


                        73, Jeff  KU8E