[MiQP-Mail] MiQP Preliminary report, N8Q (N8XX OP)

[Hank Greeb]

CALLSIGN: N8Q
STATION:  N8XX  OPERATOR N8XX
CONTEST: State QSO Party - MI
CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP ALL QRP MIXED
CLUB: MAD RIVER RADIO CLUB
CLAIMED-SCORE: 21,240
BAND    CW QSOs    PHONE QSOs
80        52            63
40        13             3
20        17             6
15         0             0
10         0             0
         -------  ----------
Tot QSOS  82            72
QSO Pnts 164            72
Total Points           236
Multipliers             90
Final ClaimedScore   21240

Total operating time about 8 hours - started a bit after 1 p.m. - ended 
at a bit after 9 p.m. with a couple breaks to get some coffee at the 
local gas station and to do a bit of sight seeing along the Kalamazoo 
river - with two Hydroelectric dams!

Cold, windy, but nice park.  Found that there WAS a 110 VAC outlet, so 
things worked out easier than I figured.  Temperature was cool when I 
started setting up, got colder during the day, with winds reported over 
30 MPH.  I stay inside my van for operating, it was warm and out of the 
wind, though the wind shook things from time to time.

Rig was my trusty Drake TR-5, cranked down to <5 Watts, using a Heath 
QRP wattmeter as the judge.

Antenna was a 80 metre dipole, sorta an inverted V, up 40 feet in the 
middle fed with 450 ohm ladder line, tuned with a 1960's era Johnson 
Matchbox. 

When I fired up the computer to run CW, the thing barfed when I plugged 
in the USB to COM port adapter - don't understand this but it must mean 
I didn't use it for contesting since a hard drive cra$hed.  Without 
internet connection I couldn't find the driver, so had to use a trusty 
olde Vibroplex bug for sending.  Apologies to the newbies who have 
trouble reading my "Lake Erie Swing."  :)

80/75 was the workhorse, for a while I could "run" on 40 or 20 CW, but 
bands were kinda rotten for QRP.  I "ran" on both 80 and 75 - very 
surprising to me for QRP to command responses on phone.  75 phone beat 
out 80 CW for the first time for my effort.  For a while it was "wall to 
wall" almost, from about 3780 to >3850 KHz with stations operating MiQP.

KD8HNF came up to operate at the same spot mobile/fixed, so I got one 
NEWAygo county contact and a phone multiplier.

Don't think the N8Q call was a help - especially with QRP - many folks 
asked for "fills" on the "Q" station - so N8XX probably would have had 
similar results.  However, using a 1X1 is fun to this casual contester!

73 de n8xx Hg