Iowa QSO Party
Call: W0BH
Operator(s): W0BH AD0DX
Station: W0BH
Class: Multi-Op Mobile LP
QTH: 20 IA counties
Operating Time (hrs): 8.4
Summary:
Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs
------------------------
160:
80:
40: 122 25
20: 273 230
15: 24 27
10:
6:
2:
222:
432:
------------------------
Total: 419 282 Mults = 57 Total Score = 63,940
Club:
Comments:
Score includes 100 bonus points for contact with K5BSA (JOTA station)
2015 Iowa QSO Party by W0BH/Bob
After a really fun Texas QSO Party with Ron/ad0dx, we decided at the last
minute to head up to Iowa and continue practicing our multi/multi operations. I
dusted off the southeastern Iowa route which Ron and I ran in 2011 and changed
it a bit to add more county line operations. I was in the process of putting
together a really nice multi-multi installation when I took a quick look at the
IAQP Rules and found out Multi-Op Mobile is restricted to only one radio. I put
that project on hold and called Ron. We decided to go anyway, but the purpose
of our trip went from serious practice to just for fun. We considered
multi/multi anyway with a checklog, but finally pulled the second radio. Next
year, Iowa?
While I'm thinking about it, if anyone out there has a Logikey K3 or K5 keyer
they aren't using, email me. I'll put it to good use in the new van!
Ron's XYL, Kathy, is a birder like Lorna, so the ladies planned a birding trip
to Hitchcock Nature Center in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. Their goal was
to watch and count hawks on one of the four major hawk migration routes in the
US. Ron and Kathy met us in Omaha on Friday evening to get both parties
started. As I walked into our hotel, I saw a nice framed certificate on the
counter with my name on it: "Guest of the Day". That meant a free
King Suite upgrade. A good start!
Saturday was clear and cool as Ron and I headed across the Missouri River into
Iowa. We had planned to begin at a three-county line about 50 miles from the
hotel, but Ron and Kathy got in late, so we delayed our start to give them a
bit more sleep. Exiting the freeway and heading east on Highway 92, the
starting gun sounded and Ron punched F1 for CQ IAQP. Three minutes after the
start and still no contacts, I saw the lights come on in my rear view mirror
and I got pulled over by a state trooper. What's up with that? His first
question as I handed him my license was, "Did you know the speed limit was
55?". Keep in mind that we'd just come from Texas where 75 is the norm on
many roads, with it's 65 in Kansas, so I just assumed the speed limit would be
65 on a good road. Wrong. It's 55 on most non-freeway roads in Iowa. My ticket
for speeding (65 in a 55) will be $40 plus $60 for court costs (even though
they expect me to use the convenient online pay option) plus $14 for something
listed as a "criminal surcharge." Guess that raises the per QSO cost
a bit. Welcome to Iowa!
After that delay of about 10 minutes, we finally got on the board with W9EBE in
IL on 40m. Once we went to 20m, things picked up nicely and stayed good on 20m
all day. Shortly after the speeding ticket, I looked up ahead and saw we were
overtaking a truck festooned with antennas. Could it be another IAQP mobile? As
we caught up to it at the scintillating speed of 55 mph, the antennas turned
into tree branches as the truck was mobiling towards a tree dump. Oh well.
John/n6mu found us quickly and stayed with us the entire trip. In the 2011
IAQP, we both set a personal best (still our record) of 112 contacts with each
other as we had 20, 15, and 10m in most of the day between IA and CA. This year
10m wasn't in and 40m didn't seem to work to CA from western IA, but we were
still able to make four contacts from each of our 20 counties for a total of 80
contacts. KQ3F also worked us in all of our counties. Very FB! More of you
should feel free to move us to other bands and modes, especially when we're not
in a pileup.
The only radio equipment problem we had was a mic connector which came loose
and took a bit too long to find. I know we shouldn't work too much SSB in a QSO
party which scores CW contact 2 points and PH contacts 1 point, but there were
so few Iowa stations on SSB that we decided to put Iowa out there anyway. We
rarely got big pileups, but we were definitely appreciated on SSB, and the
quick changes with John were a big part of the fun.
Once in awhile on 20m SSB, RF gets into the computer data connection and
momentarily blanks the frequency on the computer logging program. If I happen
to press Enter to log the contact at that time, it crashes the logging program
because it writes a frequency of 0.0 which the logging program can't handle
when I try to reload the log file. I finally wrote a short program to correct a
log file crashed in this way, and sure enough, I needed to use it. Instead of 3
minutes to fix the log file, it took about 3 seconds plus another 10 or so
seconds to reboot the DOS computer! Back up and running with no data loss
including the last contact.
The rest of the day went quickly. Corn harvest was in full swing in this part
of the state, and we both enjoyed the up and down Iowa hills. At one very rural
four-county line, we had lots of farmers go by with all kinds of equipment and
all kinds of dust. Usually they stop to see what we're up to, but harvest
apparently trumps curiosity this time of the year. We stayed close to schedule
most of the day and ended up on the Decatur / Wayne county line with Ron asleep
at the wheel (but not driving :-) while I finished out the party. A two hour
trip back to Kansas City on I35 went quickly as we listened to the Royals beat
Toronto in the ALCS. Ron is Canadian but he lives in Kansas City, so you can
ask him who he roots for. It was good to go fast again, too!
Stats
We operated 8.4 hours, 712 Qs, 206 unique calls, 11 dupes
US/VE Worked : 39
IA worked : 14 counties
DX worked : 4 countries (SM DL EA SP)
Rates 2015 2011
--------------------------
1400-1700 : 86 -- 91 Qs/hr
1700-2000 : 56 -- 74 Qs/hr
2000-2300 : 100 - 84 Qs/hr
Total W0BH/m : 701 Qs, 57 mults, 100 bonus points = 63,940 points
County Breakdown (in visited order)
Saturday (354 miles in Iowa)
01 POT 38 Pottawattamie
02 MTG 24 Montgomery
03 MIL 25 Mills
04 SHE 59 Shelby
05 AUD 62 Audubon
06 CRF 39 Crawford
07 CAR 39 Carroll
08 CAS 21 Cass
09 ADR 30 Adair
10 GUT 17 Guthrie
11 DAL 11 Dallas
12 MAD 32 Madison
13 UNI 85 Union
14 ADM 44 Adams
15 TAY 30 Taylor
16 RIN 30 Ringgold
17 CLR 34 Clarke
18 LUC 25 Lucas
19 WAY 31 Wayne
20 DEC 25 Decatur
Special thanks to the following ops for 5 or (way) more contacts:
80: N6MU
25: W4UT
23: KQ3F
21: WA2VYA
16: KS4X
15: WA8ZBT
13: W0GXQ
12: WA7JUJ
11: NA2X
10: WN4AFP
09: K0DEQ KI7MT W9MSE WB0PYF
08: K2DSW W1END W2CVW
07: N8CIJ
06: K5GE K5TIA KB8OMG KE0G N4CD NG7Z
05: AA8R K0LG KB6UNC N1API N5IR ND3R VE7JH W0EAR
04: 35 operators
03: 4 operators
02: 34 operators
01: 90 operators
Iowa mobiles worked: NU0Q/m (4) W0ZQ/m (2) K0PC/m (2)
W0BH Award Winners - First Place ---- Very Honorable Mention
--------------------------------------------------------------
Most overall Qs ---- N6MU/80 -------- W4UT/25 ------ KQ3F/23
Most CW Qs --------- N6MU/40 -------- KQ3F/23 ------ WA2VYA/18
Most PH Qs --------- N6MU/40 -------- WA7JUJ/11 ---- W4UT/9
Most counties ------ N6MU/KQ3F/20 --- W4UT/16 ------ WA8ZBT/15
Afterwards
The trip total from Kansas was 997 miles round trip. Thanks to the Ottumwa ARC
for sponsoring the event. And a special invite to the mobiles to come join us
(again!) here in Kansas for the 2016 Kansas QSO Party the last full weekend in
August.
73, Bob/w0bh and Ron/ad0dx
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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