[HCRA] MQE in Brimfield

[Jim Mullen]

What's an MQE? Why a 'Moron Qualifying Event', that's what! Experiencing an
MQE qualifies you as a true m0r0n, allowing you access to things no mere
mortal could understand. Read on and hear about today's batch of MQE's from
Brimfield!

First I'll paint the picture. I came down to the shack this afternoon to
work on price changes for one of my clients. While I'm doing this relatively
boring job I fired up the shack PC and the rig. The station was the way I
left it Monday evening after getting N1MM working for ARRL DX CW this
weekend.

Booted up DXLabs so I could find any new countries I don't have in the log.
Turned on the rig and waited for Spot Collector to find some needed spots.
About 15 minutes into things I looked over at and saw T30OU in Western
Kiribati on 21.026. I have it verified on 20 but that is my only contact.
The beam was already pointing in the right direction so I clicked on the
spot. Didn't hear a darn thing so went back to work.

Ten minutes later I see P49V in Aruba spotted on 18.073. Hey, may as well
work him. Clicked on the spot, swung the beam a little but didn't hear
anything. It was then I realized the antenna switch was connected to the
dummy load! m0r0n! So I switched to an actual antenna and wow - signals! The
P49 wasn't there so I clicked back to T30OU to see if he could be heard.

Yupper, pretty strong and working split. I had to re-tune a bit as the spot
was a little low. Zeroed him in, listened up and he was working about 1.5K
up. Gave him a call -

crap,  breakin was off.

Turned on break-in and was contemplating firing up the amp (since it is in
line) but he wrapped up the last caller so I sent out my call.

Oops the keying speed is set too slow!

I listen and he comes back, "KK1?'. Cool, send him my call at a reasonable
speed  and he comes right back with a 599. I send him my report and click
the 'Log' button. Hey, who needs an amplifier.

AND THEN (here it comes - wait for it...),

I look down at the power setting, it is turned all the way down.

I was testing SO2V live into the dummy load late Monday night and never
changed anything back. I have no idea what my transmit power level was but
it didn't  register on the digital meter of the 756. A watt maybe, certainly
not much more!

Now you know why so many prefer QRP, it actually works - pretty cool, eh?

So much for MQE's today. Hope everyone gets a good laugh out of this and
avoids any MQE's of their own. If one does happen to occur, drop a note to
the list. We all need more company.

15 M is looking very strong at the moment. I think we're in for a fun
weekend.

Jim/KK1W (aka m0r0n)