[MiQP-Mail] W1NN/M QSO Total

[Hal Offutt]

Well, that was one of the most fun MIQP's I've ever done.  It looks like the Q total is about 756.  No idea on the mult total yet.

But things started off very badly.  I really struggled during the first hour and a half.  It seemed like nobody could hear me.  40 SSB was in great shape for picking up the in-state phone mults but 3/4 of the stations I would call just CQ'd in my face.  I changed antennas, changed feedlines, swapped mag mounts, did everything I could thiink of but nothing helped.  My first hour ended with just 32 contacts.  I stayed an hour and 15 minutes in my first county trying to get things working properly, which put me way behind my schedule.

Then I suddenly realized that I had turned the radio power down to 10 watts before the contest as I tested out various antennas and got things ready, and I had failed to turn it back up!  Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!  I think it was 1:50 PM (1750Z) when this dawned on me.  I was pretty down about this because I knew that it would be a really costly mistake for my score.  But I had gone to a lot of trouble (and expense) to get where I was, and I still had over 10 hours, so I decided to go all out for the rest of the contest and try to recover.  

As a little background, I completely changed my operating style for this contest.  Actually, the change started with the Georgia QSO Party which I had done the previous week.  There were two changes:  first, switching to a K3 from the old ICOM-706MKII + antenna tuner; and second, logging on a digital voice recorder.  The K3 completely freed me from having to do any tuning or antenna switching as I switched bands or modes, and really made a big difference.  I first recorded a contest last summer (the OQP) but still logged everything on paper because I wasn't sure that I could rely on the recording, but when I checked the recording later, it was fine and I grew to trust the recording.  It seemed to work well in the GQP too.  Recording the contest allows me to pretty much keep moving throughout the contest whereas in the past I arranged my route to keep the driving down to a minimum so I could stop frequently and keep a paper log.
         
The problem with the MQP is the serial number.  I knew that I could never keep track of QSO numbers in my head while driving and paying attention to traffic and route signs.  K8MR came up with the idea to create a number check sheet and cross off each number after I used it.  This would require me to keep a pen in my right hand the whole time, but I couldn't think of a better way, so I prepared one such sheet for each county I planned to go through.  After I got used to this system it worked well but I think I gave out the same number a couple of times in the beginning.  I'll sort that out when I go through the recording.

Anyhow, the last 10 hours of the contest went much better, although because I was behind my schedule I couldn't take the time to stop to do pick up in-state mults on 75 around dusk like I usually do, so I'm afraid that my mult total will be pretty poor this time.  But my Q total is about 150 better than I've ever done before.  If I had not screwed up at the beginning I'm sure I could have done even better.  I made it through 15 of the 16 counties that I had planned to activate.  Unfortunately I had to pass up SHIA, which looks like it was missed by a lot of ops.

This time I drove up to Michigan on Friday afternoon and stayed at a hotel in Midland, just about 30 minutes away from my starting point.  This was a really good idea, allowing me to start the contest refreshed.  It sure beats driving up from Ohio before the contest.  I passed into Ohio just about 3 minutes before the end of the contest.  I sure was tired when I got home at 2:15 AM Sunday morning. 

It will be a couple of weeks before I have a chance to transcribe the log.  I'll post the final numbers to 3830 at that time. 

Elecraft needs to put a big red light on the K3 showing that the radio is operating at less than 100 watts!

Thanks everyone for a great time.
    
73, Hal W1NN
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