[MiQP-Mail] K8MAD & K8MM multi county portable operation

[Ian Hill]

MiQP 2013 K8MAD
portable operation from Sanilac and Tuscola counties.


In the interest of putting some of the more rare counties on the air for 
a few hours, last year I decided to do a portable FD style operation 
from Tuscola county since nobody had a posted a planned operation from 
there. This year I decided to add Sanilac county to the list as well. 
Both counties are close to home and an easy drive for me.

Since the place I operated from last year in Tuscola county was under 
several feet of flood water, I decided to use google to find another 
park to operate from. I used the satellite view part of google maps to 
see what a park looked like and if there were any antenna supports 
(trees) close to a parking area. I found two great locations this way.

The first place was Marlette, MI in Sanilac county and the WX was 32 
degrees, windy and snowing. As I pulled up to the spot I found on google 
and walked around a little I found a great tree to hang the G5RV in. As 
I was hanging the antenna there was another car in the parking lot 
watching me do my thing and as I finished hanging the antenna the white 
car and driver left. Just as I was about to sit down and start operating 
I remembered that I had brought a magnetic sign with me that said 
"amateur radio communications" so I stuck it on the door facing the 
road. Finally I climbed into the car, started it up, cranked the heat on 
high to thaw out and began operating. It wasn't a mere 2 minutes after 
the white car left that I see the cops coming down the street toward me. 
They pulled into the parking lot and took a look at the wire and coax in 
the tree, then the sign on my door and after a brief pause they left. 
That was nice since I didn't loose any operating time trying to explain 
to a local LEO what I was doing, not that they would have understood 
anyway. ;-P

I was a few minutes late for the start of the contest and my first 
contact was on 20M CW and it went into the log at 16:09z. I spent the 
next five hours concentrating on calling CQ and working as many guys as 
possible to hand out the SANI mult. It was always fun when I'd hit the 
dx cluster on a new band or mode and the feeding frenzy would begin. The 
time went by pretty fast between working guys and watching a bluebird 
making its next in a hollow tree.

There were constant snow flurries and at 20:26z the last qso went into 
the log and it wast time to tear down and head west to Tuscola county. 
Tear down was miserable with it being windy, cold and the ground was 
soaking wet, which is the opposite of last years MiQP. As I rolled up 
the antenna and coax I tried to make everything easy to deploy when I 
got to TUSC and it worked out pretty well when I got there.



2013 MiQP Part II – TUSCOLA County.....

I took the cross country route (is there and other?) from SANI to TUSC 
finding that there were a few detours and road closures from all the 
flooding we've been experiencing in the 'Thumb' of Michigan. Upon 
arriving in Millington, MI I found the park I was looking for and did a 
quick drive around to find a good spot to hang the G5RV. My search 
located two tall white pine trees the perfect height and distance apart. 
After two quick shots with my sling shot I had my support ropes in the 
trees, tied to the antenna and pulled it up into the trees. This time 
the wind was blocked by a nice wooded area of tall pines and I wasn't 
freezing by the time I hopped back in to the car to operate.


I turned on the radio and put the first qso from TUSC into the log at 
22:10z. I was pleased that I only had an hour and forty minutes of off 
the air time between tear down, a pit stop for gas, transit time and set 
up in a new location. I started S&P on 40M SSB and after having to 
explain to three different stations that I was in a new county and was 
NOT a dupe I decided it would be best to call CQ and say I was now in 
TUSC. I had a nice forty minute run and it was starting to slow down 
when N4PN asked me to QSY to 20M SSB where we worked and then we did a 
quick QSY to 20 CW and worked again. A quick QRZ from me netted a NU7 
then DL2HBX. Uli and I worked on CW then we QSY'ed to SSB where we put 
each other in the log again. Nobody else called on SSB so back to my 20M 
CW frequency for a few more Q's when a K0 worked and moved me to 14.151 
where we worked again. Then several other stations were calling and it 
quickly became apparent they weren't calling me but were trying to work 
K8MR/****. After the pile-up had cleared Jim was barely audible and I 
gave him a call or two but I knew he wouldn't hear me, so off to 40M CW.

On 40 CW I did a quick S&P sweep then found a place to call CQ. I worked 
a couple stations then the dx cluster pile-up came. Uli made it into the 
log again with a lot of other out of state MQP regulars. I ran that 
frequency for an hour and put roughly 90 more guys in the log on 40 CW. 
By this time it was getting really close to sunset and things had slowed 
down and 40 had gone long so it was time to QSY to 80M.

I went to 80M CW and found that it wasn't really busy yet so a CQ 
frequency was easy to find. After a couple of CQ's a DL0 answered me 
followed by a couple more guys, then I hit the dx cluster and the 
pile-up came in force. I cranked up the keyer speed, ala K8MR, and 
worked the pile down thanks to some really great ops on the other end. 
The time was now 00:30z and I had tentatively planned to pack up and 
leave by 01z so it was time to head to SSB. On 80 phone I did a quick 
sweep of the band looking for MQP stations between all of the 'pig 
farmers' and finally found a place that I could call CQ. I parked up 3 
KHz from another MQP station and got to work. I stayed there for 20 
minutes but never did seem to hit the dx cluster and things had slowed 
down and now I was only 10 minutes away from my self imposed departure 
deadline of 01Z. I looked at my qso total and noticed I was getting 
close to my qso total of 240 Q's from SANI so I decided to leave when I 
reached that mark. After another 40 minutes of flopping back and forth 
between 80 CW and SSB I reached my goal and it was 01:30z and time pack 
up. I got out of the car and realized that I left my headlamp at the 
house and not wanting to draw attention to myself by turning on my car 
headlights, I just packed up using the light from the moon. After a half 
hour of clean up it was time to head back to my home station in GENE 
where I would finish out the contest using my own call – K8MM.

Interesting score numbers...same # of qso's in each county of 240.

QSO'S MULTS SCORE QSO'S CW SSB TIME ON AIR COUNTIES WORKED
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SANI 240 120 42,240 112 128 5 HOURS 54
TUSC 240 103 40,170 151 89 4 HOURS 44




Back home in GENE.......

I went off the air in TUSC county at 01:30z and packed up and headed 
home to GENE county. After a quick snack and chat with the XYL I went 
down into the shack and put the first station in the log at 02:42z. 
Since I hadn't heard any GENE mults on CW earlier in the day I decided 
to make a concentrated effort to give the mult out on CW and try to make 
at least 100 q's in the short amount of time I had left.

I did my usual quick S&P sweep of the CW band and then found a place to 
call CQ. At 02:45 I hit the DX cluster as fresh meat and had a nice 30 
minute run before the rate slowed and it was time to go to 40 CW. On 40 
I worked a couple of stations and then was called by Uli and we worked 
then QSY'ed to SSB and worked again, then I went right back to cw and 
was spotted on the dx cluster. I had another nice run that lasted for 15 
minutes of mostly out of state stations because of the 'long' band 
conditions.

A quick move to 80M SSB only netted a few Q's so back down to CW I went. 
By this time it 03:45z and I was still 15 Q's short of my 100 QSO goal. 
I pushed hard and kept swapping between 40 and 80 CW and SSB and at 
03:57:30 I was still 4 Q's short of my goal. I decided to go back to 40M 
CW and CQ hoping for some more guys to put in the log. As luck would 
have it, my first CQ was answered by a K0 and then followed by a mini 
run of four more out of state stations and I had reached 101 Q's. I 
still had 30 seconds left to spare but nobody else called in.

QSO'S MULTS SCORE QSO'S CW SSB TIME ON AIR COUNTIES WORKED
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENE 101 44 8,624 95 6 1:20 16



All counties combined I made 581 Q's, I also drove 102 miles and had a 
total of three hours of set-up, tear-down and transit time during the 
contest, which isn't too bad for two counties with field day style 
antennas and a home station in the mix.

There were some hiccups with the computer and radio equipment. The 
laptop is an old Pentium II running Win98 and ver 8 of N1MM. I keep 
using it because it will run directly off the 13.8V from the car and I 
don't have to use an inverter that generates a lot of HF noise. There is 
a problem with the laptop timing and chopping off bits of CW characters, 
so I would have to sometimes send a marco a couple times before it was 
sent correctly. I didn't take paddles with me since I use the 'keyer 
window' in N1MM to send CW when I'm not using a macro. I was also having 
problems with RF getting into the Rigblaster on SSB in spite of using 
1:1 transformers and torroids. I guess all that's left is to add some RF 
bypass capacitors to get rid of the RF problem.

Thanks for all the Q's and thanks to all the in state, out of state and 
DX stations that make this contest a lot of fun to operate.

73,
Ian - K8MAD/SANI, K8MAD/TUSC, and K8MM