[MiQP-Mail] K8K/m MiQP Report

Jimk8mr at aol.com Jimk8mr at aol.com
Mon Apr 23 12:21:50 CDT 2007


K8K     2007 Michigan QSO  Party        K8MR, W8DRZ   operators:
 
        CW    SSB
80      69        17
40    392       63
20    253       23
 
Tot    714     103
 
S/P    44       23
Cty     19         7
 
 
Score:   142,383
 
By county, in order first activated:
 
 
            CW    SSB
SAGI       8        0
TUSC    43        3
HURO    40       3
BAY      42        6
MIDL      34      5
ISAB      36      2
CLAR     22     10
GLAD     39      7
AREN     42     3
IOSC      57     4
OGEM    38     3
ROSC     27     3
CRAW    26     4
KALK     32     1
MISS     21     5
WEXF    23     5
OSCE    36     2
MECO    13     6
LAKE     14    11
NEWA    12     1
MCLM     29    11
KENT      27     2
GRAT      11     2
CLIN          9     2
SHIA       19      1
INGH        5      1
LIVI          9     0
 
 
This was not the usual well practiced K8MR/M operation.
 
I have everything well tweaked on the 1996 Ford Windstar, all loaded and at  
2 pm on Friday headed off to pick up W8DRZ. I had to make one stop at the 
local  bank. When I came out from that, the van never seemed to get running right. 
Half  a mile down the road it was clear that it was having major trouble, and 
in  another half mile if died in the middle of the road, a quarter mile from  
home. Bad news, but thank God it was not in the middle of Kalkaska county  
that it decided to die.
 
I called AAA and an hour later a tow truck showed up. I had him haul it to  
my usual garage, and followed him there in my other car, a 1998 Ford Escort. 
Not  surprisingly, they could not get it in that afternoon, so I proceeded to 
unload  the van into the Escort and headed home.
 
At that point, the inspiration of Ethan, K8GU took over.  Knowing that  he 
had run a couple of mobile QSO parties in WI and/or MN with his Escort,  I 
decided it was worth a try. 
 
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening turning the Escort into a  
mobile radio station. I installed the mag mounts on the roof and trunk,  connected 
some ground wiring between the antennas and the car frame, connected  the 
trunk lid to the frame, hooked the power cable removed from the van to the  
Escort battery, running that through the driver door opening. Got the Ham Sticks  
tuned OK.  Then to make an operating position. I found a piece of plywood  used 
in an earlier van operating table, nailed a 2x4 to make a single leg, and  
balanced that between that one leg, the corner of the folded down back seat, the 
 back of the front seat, and the door. It wasn't great, but it held the 
laptop  and K9LU paddle. It was the best I could do on short notice.
 
After some not very good sleep, I got up at 5 am Saturday and left home  
about 6 am. Got to Jim/DRZ's QTH about 7 am. Loaded his stuff, set up his GPS,  
and were ready to set off again. The Escort would not start. Dead battery.  
Headed off to find the local auto pasts store.  Not open until  7:30. Went back to 
DRZ land, took out the dead battery, went back to the store,  got battery, 
back to DRZ, put in battery, left about 8 am. 
Again, the good news was that this did not happen parked in the middle  of 
nowhere in Michigan.
 
It was about a 4 1/2 hour drive to our planned starting point in Huron  
county. We could see that we were not going to quite make that, so we modified  our 
route, heading east from Saginaw to start in SAGI, then through TUSC to our  
original planned starting point in HURO.   
 
In SAGI the bands sounded pretty flat. Nothing in close on 40, not much on  
20. We spent only a few minutes before heading off.  In TUSC we started  
working people reasonably well, and in HURO had some small pileups. For much of  the 
day 40 was mediocre, but 20 produced very nicely, with a combination of DX,  
western USA and FL stations. 
 
We got into a good routine with K5YAA, KU8E, N6MU, and WA3HAE of  switching 
to SSB. Most of those were pretty polite about waiting until the  pileups 
subsided, though HAE just asked for SSB whenever he worked us. It turned  out to be 
not so bad, because several times we dragged some extra guys up to SSB  who I 
doubt we would have found otherwise. I never got much going as far as  
running on SSB, but did get a number of people to QSY from CW for  SSB mults.  
Thanks to guys like VE1WT, VE9DX, N1IW, K4AMC, WA3GNW,  N8NA, W0JPL for helping 
out.  Missed a few other potential SSB mults with  guys who were only CW or 
otherwise could not QSY. Later in the evening  I had some luck on 40 SSB, including 
W1WIU in RI calling in on SSB,  from where we moved to CW.
 
The rates during much of the day were such that I was thinking it was  
possible to break my 2004 record of 1052 qsos, although I knew the mults were  going 
to be bad.  However, that year I averaged over 100/hr for the last 4  hours.  
This year the bands just died too early, so no such luck.
 
So the MiQP adventure in the Escort turned out fine. It wasn't as  
comfortable, but I think the noise level may have been better than in the van.  The $600 
to replace the alternator, battery, and belt tensioner in the van did  not 
make me happy. I did not mind the Escort battery, since that one was  original 
equipment and due for a new one. We did save a little gas  with the Escort.
 
Thanks to all who followed us around Michigan.  See you in the Ohio  QSO 
Party on Saturday, August 25. 
 
 
 
73  -  Jim & Jim   K8MR & W8DRZ  



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