[FQP]Re: [FCG] FQP Addendum

[Georgek5kg at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/29/2004 2:35:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
ku8e at bellsouth.net writes:

Jeff,

I will dissect your questions below:


George...  did you stop in a county and continue to work a pileup down or 
just keep on driving ???  
We blew right on thru the counties.  We were in and out of Nassau on I-10 
only long enough to change logs and make 2 Q's!  This was our decided strategy in 
order to maximize counties.  Of course, we realized that we were leaving 
pileups wanting but, as I say, it was our strategy to NOT stop.  In fact, the only 
stopping was for QTP and QTF (that's to pee and to fuel).
We planned to do 35 counties but only ended up doing 29
because the pileups in many of our counties just didn't die down....  Also, 
there were some counties that we stopped becuase we were just cutting through a 
corner...  I am almost thinking it's better to plan a route where you are in 
a county about 20 mins MAX and just keep on going and try to activate as many 
as you can.... even if you still have a pileup..

20 mins would be a good amount of time needed to work off that initial 30 - 
50 Q's that are always there.  Any longer, and it drags out too long.
I also think you need to hit many of the southern counties if you want to 
have a winning score... the propagation seems better the further south you go. I 
noticed the EU stations got louder and we even started working them on 15 
meters when we were in south Florida. I also remember working the east coast on 15 
meters when we were further south. We were able to work the west coast from 
both north and south Florida...

We did South on Saturday and North on Sunday.  I can't say that I recognized 
any difference in propagation from North to South, although you may be right 
about 15m and the East Coast.  Last year, we did North on Saturday and South on 
Sunday.  I think that Jim and I both felt that this years routing was much 
better than last years.

Both years, Orange Cty and that WHOLE ORLANDO MESS ("WHO") was a nemesis.  We 
got lost after dark on Saturday, and spent way too much time in WHO.  At the 
end of the contest on Sunday, I made a wrong turn in CIT that probably cost us 
two counties.  We got stuck for 25 minutes behind a 20 mph'er whom we 
couldn't get around.  And don't you know, he had ham radio plates on his car!  We 
suspect that he was a plant sent out by the N4KM / K0LUZ team, but that has yet 
to be confirmed by the privated eye we have hired to investigate!


 BTW how many SSB QSOs did you guys have ????

I don't have an SSB count yet.  Probably around 5%, but that is a guess.

73, Geo...

George Wagner, K5KG
941-312-9450
941-312-9460 fax
941-400-1960 cell