[ILQSO] N9JF/P story

[Joe LeKostaj]

From: James Funk
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 9:25 PM
To: 'ilqso at mailman.qth.net'
Subject: N9JF/P story

As I am caught up (temporarily) on processing electronic log 
submissions for ILQP, it's time for the N9JF/P storyŠ.

Six months ago, my plan was to again be a mobile in southern IL for 
the event. However, I speak twice a month at two small local 
churches.  When the schedule was originally constructed, I asked for 
the 16th "off"; but the message got entangled with some other issues, 
and I found myself committed for two services on Sunday, at 9 and 
10:15 a.m.  As the second church is in northern Adams County, there 
was no way Darren (N9MTX) and I could get to southern IL by starting 
time. This was even before the start time change to 1700Z!  Darren 
and his YL have moved back to the area; and I've been wanting to 
operate with him in a contest, so it seemed natural at this point to 
look for a corner and be a portable entry.  There are four 3-county 
corners within an hour's drive of the church: HANC/SCHY/MCDN 
(occupied by KN0E), ADAM/BROW/PIKE (occupied by N9DT and WB9EWM), 
ADAM/BROW/SCHY, and ADAM/HANC/SCHY.   I had tried to reach 
ADAM/BROW/SCHY a few weeks earlier and determined it would be 
difficult, if not impossible, to get there and set up a station.  The 
nearest road is a mile away, the site is in heavy woods, and even 
field roads might not get very close.  That left ADAM/HANC/SCHY, 
which is about a fifteen-minute drive from the church. 

After calling the landowner, I drove to the corner on Saturday and 
tossed lines into a convenient tree and erected two dipoles, one 
open-wire and one for 40 meters.  The open-wire was parallel to a set 
of electrical lines across the road and broadside east-west but 
fortunately did not seem to pick up appreciable noise.  The 40 meter 
dipole was actually an inverted V with the ends north-south.  Neither 
was more than 25' high at any point.  Oh well, straight up is good in 
a QSO partyŠ. In addition, the mobile antennas on the car would be 
used, mostly for SSB.

On Sunday, Darren and I changed clothes at the church and zipped to 
"our corner".  Fortunately, the dipoles were still present.  We had 
about 35 minutes to set up the generator, string feedlines and cords, 
set up two radios, link two computers, set out a card table and chair 
and "get our heads screwed on". 

The plan was for me to CQ a lot (CWŠ2 pointsŠ) and for Darren to comb 
40 SSB for mults and perhaps CQ some on 20 SSB.  Initially I spent a 
few minutes looking for mobiles on 40 cw and then found a spot to CQ. 
The pileup that ensued was exhilarating; the rate meter hit 120/hr 
and remained there for quite some time.  As it slowed a bit, I 
indicated to Darren that he should let me know if he found someone to 
call.  With a combination of verbal exchanges, hand signals, grimaces 
and other gestures, we managed to coordinate calls so as to comply 
with the "one transmitted signal" rule.  Watching Darren's face as he 
called (and called again) stations on 40 SSB was pricelessŠ.

Disaster threatened when I tried 20 CW for the first time.  Every 
time I keyed the rig, the computer went berserk.  Even if I didn't 
key the rig on 20 meters, if Darren transmitted on any band, the 
computer sent didahdidahdidahdidahŠŠAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHH!  Of all the 
times not to bring along a straight key!  I finally got the idea of 
pulling the paddles from the mobile rig that Darren was using on SSB, 
hooking them directly to the radio and using one side of the paddles 
as a straight key.  If you worked me on 20 CW and wondered what the 
heck I was doingŠwellŠthat's what I was doingŠ.. It wasn't pretty, 
but I managed to make about 50 contacts by that method, including 
most of our DX contacts. 

Darren combed the bands for multipliers, interspersing an occasional 
SSB contact with the CW.  He also shoveled a sandwich or banana in my 
direction once in awhile; fortunately he had remembered to pack food. 
I hadn't given it a thought!  Along with the IL mobiles he found, he 
finally made contact with a JOTA operation in British Columbia for a 
new mult.  Unlike other years, there was no "lull" in the action.

The day was absolutely gorgeous, with a few clouds, light breezes and 
temperatures in the 70's.  When the sun went down, however, the 
temperature dropped like a rock.  By 0000Z, I found I could barely 
feel my fingers on the keyboard; also, the display on the old laptop 
was quite dim, and the light I had brought along had a broken on-off 
switch.  So much for "thinking of everything".  Darren stepped up his 
efforts to find stations on 75 meter phone, and I tried to anticipate 
where KJ9C, KF9D and NN9K would show up next.  With twenty seconds to 
go, K9NSS called me for one last mult (WMSN) and we pulled the plug 
on the operation.   Three-quarters of an hour later, we were packed 
and headed home, thinking of pizza awaiting us there.

No contest effort is complete without an evaluation.  What did we do 
right?  Well, we operated the whole eight hours and nothing broke. 
The Honda generator performed like a champ, as usual.  The farmer 
disking corn stalks in the field we were in didn't run over us or any 
of the equipment.  It wasn't windy enough to blow down antennas or 
blow dirt all over the radios. (Monday would have been an entirely 
different story!!).  We found more IL counties than I've ever worked 
before in ILQP (76), partly due to having a second operator.  We did 
manage to get our 5 DXCC mults in a non-sunspot situation

(USA/VE/KL7/DL/9H).  What we found however, was that we were 
extremely limited by the antenna/radio combinations.  The 40 meter 
inverted V was no better than the mag-mount vertical on the car.  The 
fact that both wire antennas favored the north-south direction meant 
we were stronger than horseradish in Alabama and Minnesota but missed 
a large number of eastern and western states.  Our lack of discussion 
ahead of time about operating strategy meant we probably spent too 
little time CQing on SSB.  One more good wire antenna favoring 
east-west and a tuner on the second radio would have helped a lot. 
An amp would have been a big asset on SSB.  (I don't own 
oneŠyetŠbutŠ.).  Hey, we had fun!