[FQP] FW: MiQP WI9WI Mobile Solo Op LP

Wed Apr 24 13:28:59 PDT 2013

Hey Jim,

Tnx for all the gory details.  I really must try mobiling in the north  
woods sometime!  I actually did that a few years ago when in the summertime  
from ND, VE5, VE4, VE3.

Yes, you really must work K4KG this weekend from our planned 51  
counties...maybe more.

73, Geo...

George  Wagner, K5KG
Sarasota, FL 
941-400-1960 cell  

In a message dated 4/24/2013 2:33:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
jhfitzpa at wisc.edu writes:

I think that NE9U got  up there late Saturday morning after taking care of 
their vehicle and  equipment problems. They were actually probably better 
off coming up later  because they didn’t have to deal with the snow and 
slippery roads Friday night  and early Saturday morning. By late morning the roads 
were getting a lot  better and by mid to late afternoon they were pretty 
normal, at least on the  main roads. I made several strategic errors on this 
one. When I started out  Saturday morning and decided to backtrack through 
Wakefield up to 28 I should  have stopped at the GOGE/ONTO county line and 
started from there rather than  go further east to BARA and working my way 
back. After a couple of hours at  GOGE/ONTO I could have headed east through 
HOUG, and BARA and then on to MARQ.  The roads were a lot better by mid 
afternoon and I wouldn’t have lost so much  time driving. Then I could have gone 
south from MARQ to DICK and IRON. That  would have given me 3 more counties. 
>From IRON it’s about a 1.5- 2 hr drive  back to Ron’s cabin.  
The other error was  not hooking the mike up when I set up the radio. I 
should spend more time on  SSB. When people started asking for SSB I went to 
plug it in and the connector  was wrapped around some other cables behind the 
radio. Rather than just start  yanking things I ended up having to get out 
of the car, walk around to the  other door, and untangle things under direct 
vision. You can see my setup from  the picture. I have the K-3 on a box with 
the keyer. The battery is behind the  seat and connected to a rig runner 
behind the radio. The antenna coax come in  through the window. This is 
obviously not a permanent setup. The paddles are  next to the radio. My little 
homemade plywood desk holds the computer and  mouse pad and I just hold it on 
my lap. I keep a paper pad handy to make  notes. My operating style and 
objectives are different from most mobiles.  Because I don’t operate while 
driving I try to choose my route to minimize  actual time driving during the 
contest. I tend to go to far fewer counties and  spend more time in each one I’m 
in. I try to maximize the chances for anyone  who wants to work me by 
spending more time in each county and also operating  at 26-30 wpm rather than 
35-40. I think I get more casual operators this way.  I do virtually no S&P. I’
m not really trying to maximize my score by  working a lot of mults. The 
only other mobile I heard was Dan W8CAR. He called  me from one county. I never 
heard IR, NE9U or MR. I stuck pretty much to the  same freq on both 40 and 
20, but did have to move a couple of  times. 
I hope to work KG  from  every county in FL this weekend. 
73 
Jim 
WI9WI 

____________________________________

From:  Georgek5kg at aol.com [mailto:Georgek5kg at aol.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 12:36  PM
To: jhfitzpa at wisc.edu
Cc: ve7zo at hotmail.com; ronkk9k at gmail.com;  k8mr at arrl.net; fcg at kkn.net; 
fqp at kkn.net
Subject: Re: FW: MiQP WI9WI Mobile Solo Op LP

Jim,

You did a great  job...tnx for the Qsos from WAY UP NORTH.  Your story is 
amazing, and  you should really send it into the NCJ for us DOWN SOUTH 
SISSIES to  read.  Your signal was not loud, but was easily copyable.  A few  
times you were within a few HZ from K8MR, and I had to crank down the  bandwidth 
to get you.

When I was working  you early on Saturday, I was not hearing NE9U at all.  
I guess that Ron's  truck had a problem and, from what you wrote, they must 
have gone back to  change vehicles.  That must have been a joy!  Later in 
the day, I  worked NE9U several times.  Neither of you were smashingly loud.   

Jim, K8MR, by far  and away the best mobile, followed by W8CAR. (Best in 
the sense  of high speed operating and rapid county  changes.)  MR, CAR and 
NE9U were Mixed, and I worked  them several times both modes (MR many times 
both modes).  Jim was  moving us to 14,151 which, by the way I loaned him that 
frequency for the  weekend, as it is our proprietary FQP freq!  Later he 
was moving the  pack, first to 7133 and later to 7140.  7140 turned out to be 
the better  freq, since 7133 became inhabited by some dx stns without a 
sense of  humor.

A point I want to  make for all of our listeners is that it really helps if 
the mobiles always  keep the same frequency.  That way we can map them on 
the band so we know  where we know to find them.  MR would occasionally 
change his CW freq up  or down a kHz or two, and this made finding him a bit 
tricky, although his  signal always had the distinctive sound of a high speed 
bumble  bee!

73,  Geo...

PS.  Ron, now  we need the NE9U story.

George  Wagner, K5KG
Sarasota, FL  
941-400-1960 cell  

In a message dated  4/23/2013 12:22:11 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
jhfitzpa at wisc.edu  writes:

Florida QSO Party  Northern Division. You guys are a bunch of sissies 
driving
around in your  T shirts, sandals and underwear.

-----Original Message-----
From:  webform at b41h.net [mailto:webform at b41h.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013  4:01 AM
To: 3830 at contesting.com; jhfitzpa at wisc.edu
Subject: MiQP WI9WI  Mobile Solo Op LP

Michigan QSO  Party

Call: WI9WI
Operator(s): WI9WI
Station:  WI9WI

Class: Mobile Solo Op  LP
QTH: 4 counties
Operating Time (hrs):  6

Summary:
Band  CW Qs  Ph  Qs
--------------------
80:    0     0
40:  113      9
20:  102     28
15:    0   0
10:    0       0
--------------------
Total:  215     37  CW  Mults = 52  Ph Mults = 22  Total Score = 34,558

Club:  Minnesota  Wireless Assn

Comments:

This one didn't quite work out the way  it was planned. The initial plan was
to
drive up from Madison Friday  afternoon to Manitowish Waters and have dinner
and
spend the night  with the NE9U crew at KK9K's cabin. I would then make a  
loop
counterclockwise through IRON, DICK, MARQ, BARA, HOUG, ONTO and  GOGE
returning
to the cabin at the end of the QSO party. About 1330 on  Friday I called 
NE9U
and he said that they were about an hour from  departure from KK9K's place
near
Wisc. Rapids. I left Madison about 1430.  The snow started just north of
Wausau,
and by the time I got near  Manitowish Waters it was near whiteout
conditions. It
was wet heavy  spring snow and the roads became very slippery quickly. When 
I
got
to  the cabin at 1830 no one was there. I called NE9U and got voice  mail.
About
30 minutes later he called back and said they had some  problems with their
set
up and got held back several hours but were on  the way. I went to the 
nearby
Bear Restaurant to get something to eat,  and while there KK9K called and
said
they had had a major vehicle  problem and were turning back and would come 
up
the next morning in a  different vehicle. The long drive downhill to the
cabin
from the road  had several inches of ice on it covered with about 4 to 6
inches
of  new heavy wet snow. I worried that if I drove down it I might not  get
back
up, so rather than opting to carry all my gear down on foot  that night and
back
up the next morning I drove to Hurley, just on the  WI side of the WI/MI UP
border, and got a motel room. The 40 mile drive  took over an hour due to
very
slippery roads. The next morning it was  bright and sunny. I started the 
trip
toward IRON County about 8 AM. The roads were  quite icy due to the traffic
packing the snow down during the night. By  the time I got to Wakefield it
was
obvious I couldn't  drive more than 35-40 mph safely. Parts of US 2 were
unplowed at that  hour. I figured it would take me at least 2 hours to get 
to
IRON Cty and  then another to DICK. So I turned around and went up to Hwy 
28.
It
was  in better shape than 2 so I drove to the BARA/HOUG line. What  should
have
taken about 80 mins took over 2 hours. I usually operate  from waysides, 
boat
landings, county parks and off the highway on town  roads. None of these 
were
plowed and most still had 2 to 3 feet of winter  snow on them. I have no
driver
and don't operate while moving. I don't  feel safe doing it. So I found a
snowplow turnaround and parked out of  the way and got set up. Everything
worked
fine except the 40 meter  antenna but that was easily fixed by changing the
coax.
Conditions  were good. Over the next few hours I worked my way back  through
HOUG,
ONTO to GOGE, operating from plow turnarounds. While in  GOGE my RV battery
started dying. My options were to hook up to the car's  electrical system,
which
only takes a few minutes, and continue in  GOGE, hook up to the car and move
on
to IRON Cty back through  Wakefield,  or go home. By mid afternoon after
plowing
and some sun the roads were  in very good condition, and highway speeds were
fine. I figured it would  take me about 80-90 min to get to IRON. But it was
in
the wrong  direction, and after operating there I would have to  backtrack
nearly
100 miles to get to the cabin or continue on home. So  I packed up and drove
the
300 miles back to Madison arriving an  hour before the contest ended. In
retrospect I probably should have  hooked up to the car battery and operated
another hour or so from GOGE.  That means running the car while operating.
There
is a bit of noise,  but it is not intolerable.

Gear: K-3 running about 50 watts (RV  battery lasts longer)
Microham keyer
Netbook computer with  Writelog
Hustler whip for 20
Texas Bugcatcher for 40

A few  stats:

County   Time   20 meters   40  meters  Total QSOs
BARA    51 min  24CW/0P   23CW/0P       47
HOUG     58      26CW/0P     18CW/0P     44
ONTO    113     42CW/27P   22CW/8P       99
GOGE    47   11CW/1P     39CW/2P        53

Hopefully next year the weather will be better.

Thanks for  all the QSOs.

73

Jim

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Version: 2013.0.3272 / Virus  Database: 3162/6265 - Release Date:  04/22/13