[MiQP-Mail] K8IR/m

[Jim Callow]

We heard the Michigan QSO Party was starting at 1600 Saturday.  You could
have fooled us! 40 meters was so bad, we had only 10 in-state QSO's in the
log during the first two hours.  At the beginning in CHEB, we faintly heard
K8MQP in the same county, and K8MR/m, but neither could hear us.   As we
worked our way north and east, we finally were able to work stations in the
extreme southern portion of the state, but it wasn't until the 2300 hour
when we exchanged the 20m antenna for the 80, that we started getting the
in-state mults.

The plan had been to get the in-state phone mults on 40, which was a bad
strategy for this year. Normally we avoid 75 meters phone, but we probably
should have thrown the 75 meter resonator on the Hustler at some point.
Since we had guyed both the 40 and 80 meter antennas, it was more of a task
than we wished to attempt in the dark, and the CW rate was good enough to
keep us busy.  We'll come up with a better plan next year.  We really hurt
our score with the lack of phone QSO's and mults.

As bad as 40 was, 80 was wonderful this year.  Low noise, and lots of big
signals.  I guess you'd expect this as the sunspots disappear.

I was very pleased with the activity from the U-P this year.    I worked 8
of the 15 counties myself.

The weather was beautiful as we begun in Mackinaw City, but by the time we
hit Delta County it was raining.  No thunder or lightning, thank goodness.
We got behind the cold front by the time we headed north into the Copper
Country.  We had no problem keeping up with the schedule, arriving in KEWE,
our last county, at about 0245.  The ride home was no fun, as dense ground
fog covered much of our route, adding an extra hour to the 3.5 hour trip
home. But we did find gas at L'anse for 2.07 a gallon! That's 34 cents a
gallon less than the gas I put in the car last Sunday for the trip.

I ran the logs through Excel, and the results look something like this:

CW QSOs  620  Phone QSOs 25   CW Mults 72, Phone mults 15.

Final score ~ 110K

As usual, the biggest thanks go to my driver, Ed  KG8CX who once again got
us through the route on time, avoided various wildlife on the road, and who
smoothly educated the Keweenaw County Sheriff Deputy who dropped in on us as
to what a QSO Party is, and why we needed to be sitting there at almost
midnight in a car with some very strange looking things on the roof.

Thanks to all for the QSO's.  Ed and I had a blast. (Except on the ride
home).

73
Jim K8IR
Ed KG8CX