[FQP] [FCG] FQP submittal

George K5KG georgek5kg at aol.com
Wed Apr 29 06:02:02 PDT 2015 

Outstanding is all I can say, Charlie & Marty!

George, K4G

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 28, 2015, at 22:06, charlie carroll <k1xx at k1xx.com> wrote:
> 
> Florida QSO Party
> 
> Call: K1XX
> Operator(s): K1XX W1MD
> Station: K1XX
> 
> Class: M/SMixed LP
> QTH: Many
> Operating Time (hrs): 20
> 
> Summary:
> Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
> --------------------
>   40:   148     1
>   20:  1514   196
>   15:   485    38
>   10:     9     3
> --------------------
> Total:  2156   238  CW Mults = 74  Ph Mults = 42  Total Score = 1,055,600
> 
> Club: Florida Contest Group
> 
> Comments:
> 
> Well, there must have been free beer and oysters someplace in the Panhandle this
> weekend.  It seemed the place to be for the mobiles.
> 
> What can I say about the FQP?  W1MD and I got hooked on it 5 years ago and are
> already talking about our strategy for year 6.
> 
> This weekend was another hoot, especially since propagation was reasonably good
> and the QSOs seemed bottomless at times.  (More about that later.)
> 
> After 2013's FQP, I purchased a new Subaru to replace my ancient Honda CRV.  I
> figured that I'd get a lot of push back from my wife if I told her I wanted to
> drill a hole in the center of the roof like I'd done with the Honda.  So not
> long after purchasing the Subaru, I acquired a roughly 4 foot by 4 foot
> aluminum plate and mounted it on custom-cut pieces of pressure-treated wood
> mounted to the roof racks.  The Tarheel II antenna went smack in the center of
> that plate.  After 2014's FQP, I knew that I had a winning antenna.  Virtually
> all of the ignition-type noise was also eliminated and what remains is easily
> handled by my K3.  For this year, I modified the Tarheel to raise the coil
> another 18 inches above the aluminum plate.  I think I've finally reached my
> limit on antenna improvements.  Or, maybe not.
> 
> However, both Marty and I felt that improving the operator's situation would
> help with the score.  So, I did add a small table behind the front passenger's
> seat to hold the keyboard/mouse/paddle.  Taking that to an extreme, I even
> mounted a small LCD monitor to the back of the passenger's seat.  The operating
> laptop simply went on the floor.  It was much easier on the operator and we
> operated this way for quite some time until some problems cropped up that
> forced us to abandon the LCD and keyboard.  Back to the laptop only, but riding
> on the new table. BTW, I used a small 100-watt dc-ac inverter to power the
> monitor.  The 2 laptops (navigating and operating), K3, and antenna controller
> were fed by 12 volts.
> 
> This year, we drove from Melbourne to Pensacola on Friday with a planned start
> in Escambia on Saturday.  We did not try to maximize counties like we had last
> year with 55.  Rather, we wanted to hit the rarer Panhandle counties and then
> zoom south to Monroe for another QSO fest.  Saturday went pretty much as
> planned, except for Escambia.  Note to self... check out the starting location
> beforehand.  In a word, it sucked!  The noise was terrible and we made only
> about a dozen contacts before moving on.
> 
> Only a few things stood out during the first day.  As already mentioned, the
> pileups with tremendous (or maybe horrendous).  Band/mode selection was a bit
> of a challenge.  When to change?  Near the end of the first hour, I had a JA
> call in on 15!  Seemed strange, but he was in the clear and the call was solid.
> Long path? 
> Great drive through Calhoun, Bay, Franklin, & Liberty counties.  No June
> bugs, no rain.  In Liberty we took a planned detour through the Apalachicola
> National Forest to pick up Wakulla county.  Fifteen miles on unpaved dirt road.
> Good thing we had a radio that worked.  Breakdown there and it's a very long,
> lonely walk.  Funniest thing, to me at least, was seeing a Stop sign where an
> essentially cow path intersected with our unpaved highway.  Government at its
> best I guess.  I mentioned earlier that I'd modified my Tarheel to raise the
> coil.  It's 13 feet, 6 inches to the very top of the whip.  In Wakulla I found
> the branch that is 13 feet above the road!  Sure got Marty's and my attention. 
> The whip now has a nice little kink in it near the top.  Good thing we were
> only
> going 30'ish miles an hour.
> 
> Sunday was also equally a blur with a couple of exceptions.  Since I won't be
> at Dayton, I'll admit to W4NX that it was me that "missed the exit." 
> Didn't really miss an exit, but it was easier for Marty to send that.  The
> highway crosses a corner of DeSoto county and I didn't stop in time.  I had to
> get off the highway, double back and try again.  Cost us about 20-25 minutes. 
> Band/mode changing was even more of a challenge on Sunday because 10 showed a
> bit of life.  It was a good thing that more than one station wasn't in the
> Monroe-Collier-Dade corner at the same time.  K3s or not, 20 yard spacing would
> have been tough to handle.  The home stretch between the Miami area and
> Melbourne was a run fest for Marty.  It was 150+ hour after hour.  It's that
> time of day when conditions are great and signals are loud.
> 
> I'll end this message on a bit of a sour note.  To reinforce what a couple of
> other folks have said... the pileups were terrible.  People kept calling and
> calling and calling, all at roughly the same speed, and virtually everyone zero
> beat.  The ten percent "good ops" got through by not zero beating and
> timing their calls.  Twenty to forty Hertz is all you need.  Wait until after
> the masses have stopped their initial call and then send yours.  Just to single
> out a few, and certainly not all, but folks like N5DO, K5YAA, K9PG, NT2A got
> through more on skill than brute force.  Oh, and K9NW got through by skill and
> the fact that he was loud all the time!  Marty put it well one time when he
> told folks to spread out a little.
> 
> Next year we also plan to record the whole event. It has been suggested that
> maybe we'll work with the KCDX CW contest folks and submit a portion of the
> recording for use in the suites!! You ain't heard nothin' until you've been on
> the receiving end of an FQP CW pileup at 75 MPH with 20-30 stations calling
> with 1 Hz separation and all at the same speed. I'll also add that most of the
> list below made it in the log as many times as they did because they were
> savvy' pileup folks and called low or high (as little as 40 Hz was all that was
> needed) and or with a certain speed (K5YAA :)). And, although N3DXX isn't on the
> list below I ABSOLUTELY could pull him out every time. Nothing like DXX at 40
> wpm.
> 
> The top guys with more than 30 Qs were:
> 
> K9NW(69)
> K9PG(47)
> K5YAA(47)
> N9CK(46)
> NT2A(44)
> K9CT(43)
> VA3DF(38)
> NA8V(37)
> N5DO(35)
> K3WW(35)
> NS9I(33)
> WA3HAE(33)
> K6LA(32) <<<< even made it on 10
> K7SV(32)
> 
> This is a great event.  It's a challenge in many different ways and we
> really look forward to it.  Thanks to everyone for calling in, zero beat
> or not.  And last, thanks to our constant foil, Bobby Ann, WA1Z, who we
> trade light-hearted barbs with every contest.
> 
> 73 and plan for next year.
> Charlie, k1xx
> Marty, w1md
> 
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