[ILQSO] Quote of the day

[John Geiger]

Hi Jim,

You were plenty loud from the mobile on 40.  Other
loud mobile stations were NN9K, N9BIL, NY4N, and
W9MSE. Maybe another 1 or 2 I can't remember right
now.  Thanks for the trip to Monroe as you were my
only QSO with that county, but if someone was on the
SANG/CHRS line I never heard them.  My only SANG QSO
was NN9K/M.

73s John AA5JG

--- James Funk <jfunk at fossnorthamerica.com> wrote:

> Until somebody comes up with a better one.....
> 
> K9IUA:  "At least it was a beautiful day to be out
> in the country."
> 
> I knew 40 meters was in trouble when at the
> beginning I couldn't HEAR
> any IL stations from our west-central location
> (BROW).  This wasn't a
> big surprise; I run counties on 40 meter CW most
> days and lately have
> often found it impossible to work stations closer
> than 350 to 400 miles
> during much of the day.  When I worked my fourth
> Delaware and hadn't
> heard Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri or Iowa (which I
> NEVER heard), I
> thought "hmmmm"....
> 
> It's always a little difficult to get off to a fast
> start in this
> contest when I'm mobile.  Ninety percent of the
> time, I send while
> driving (right-handed), and during the contest I
> switched to lefty as
> Melba drove so I could send with one hand and log
> with the other (yes, I
> can write left-handed, but I have to think about it,
> and I was already
> overloaded mentally).  Add the decisions about
> band-changes and whether
> to CQ or search and pounce for awhile, and doing a
> QSO party is pretty
> much NOTHING like just running counties for the
> County Hunters.
> 
> In BROW, after eighteen minutes and only twelve
> contacts, I muttered,
> "Golly, I hate to do this" and went to 40 SSB. 
> Again, not one IL
> station heard!  "Where the heck is N9UM?  K9ZO? 
> KI9A? NG9R? (only miles
> away)" I could hear out of state stations working IL
> but could not hear
> the IL stations AT ALL.  I called K8MR (blasting
> away) who kindly
> offered his frequency.  Several minutes of CQing
> netting a whopping ONE
> contact, so....back to CW.  That was the LAST SSB
> QSO garnered by CQing.
> 
> I didn't feel very loud on CW, either, though I had
> some nice runs from
> time to time (probably when I was spotted, though I
> haven't looked at
> the spot logs on W6RK yet).  I would occasionally
> tune across 40 and
> find a nice pileup calling someone in-state that I
> couldn't hear well
> enough to work (or at all).  I would like very much
> for one of you
> out-of-staters who worked a lot of mobiles to give
> some assessment of
> who was loud and who wasn't.  I felt like I must
> have been about the
> strength of mouse milk.  When I began to hear a few
> IL fixed or portable
> stations, I tried calling, but it wasn't until MNRD
> (the FIFTH COUNTY)
> that I finally got the attention of an IL station
> that wasn't basically
> in my back yard.  The first IL mobile I worked was
> W9MSE in DEWT when I
> was in SANG (my SEVENTH county). On the other hand,
> WA9AQN seemed to
> hear me every time I called him!  Despite all the
> calling in pileups (a
> LOT) and constant CQing otherwise, I worked a
> whopping SEVEN different
> IL stations until I went to 80 meters at 2150Z.  
> 
> The out-of-staters, however, really kept things
> hopping.  I think AB7RW
> was waiting every time I went to 20 CW.  DL3GA,
> OM3DX, LY2ZZ, KL7D, and
> CU2JT spiced up the pileups a bit.  There have been
> several years when
> even as a portable I couldn't work five DXCC
> countries.  On 40, there
> were a lot who really seemed to be roaming the band
> and pouncing on
> mobiles.  Though I hate to pick out one, it can't be
> avoided: K5UV
> worked me in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY I RAN. Incredible. 
> I wonder if he was
> as fortunate with the other mobiles?  
> 
> The most maddening feature of pretty much the entire
> trip was the LINE
> NOISE.  It was just terrible on most of the roads we
> drove. I know there
> were stations out there calling me that thought,
> "What an idiot!  Get a
> receiver!"  When the line noise is S9 or higher and
> you don't have time
> to pull off onto a line-less side road, I don't know
> what to try.
> Comments from other mobiles??  
> 
> The equipment worked just fine otherwise.  I used
> the mini-Tarheel on 40
> and the Hustlers on 80 and 20.  I know they are not
> the greatest
> antennas in the world, but sometimes you have to go
> with what you have.
> Getting home from a 4200-mile business trip at 9 pm
> on Saturday and
> having to speak twice on Sunday morning didn't allow
> time for any
> preparation beyond putting a set of headphones in
> the car and grabbing a
> pad of paper for logging and a lap-board for the log
> and paddles.  Yes,
> I logged on paper; it's not my "recommendation", but
> it was the best
> alternative under the circumstances.  Next year I
> hope to go back to
> some computer-based logging, but I wasn't in the
> mood to deal with
> inverter and computer noise along with all of the
> other complexities.
> I'm sure it was obvious that I was sending by hand. 
> Bumpy roads make
> perfect CW impossible....
> 
> Okay, I just checked the spots log.....
> 
> Stations spotting IL stations: K4UB, K8QWY, WA8LKD,
> KS5A, VA3NN, N5UZW,
> K2DRH, K0RCJ, WQ7A, DL6KVA
> 
> IL stations spotted:  NN9K/M, K9OT, N9JF/M, N9CDX/P,
> KN9T/P, "N2JB",
> N9BIL, AJ9C, WI9X, WB9Z, W9IL, N9FN, K9WA, W9GKA,
> W9ZJX, W9FY, K9CT,
> N9UM, W9TY, N1KW/9, KI9A
> 
> That was the first hour.  If you want to see how
> many times you were
> spotted, and by whom, go to http://ch.w6rk.com/,
> type you call into the
> "mobile call" window, select "50" in the "show
> spots" box and click
> "search". Pretty cool....
> 
> At about 2040Z, 40 meters just "went away" for about
> 15 minutes.  I
> could still hear stations but pretty much nobody
> called. I still
> couldn't get the attention of the few IL stations I
> could hear well
> enough to identify.  I tried 80 and didn't find a
> soul.  It was about
> this time that we were panicking, thinking we
> couldn't possible make it
> to our last county (MNRO) by 0200Z.  Melba did a
> masterful job of
> driving the entire route (at legal speeds) without
> getting lost and with
> minimal prompting and basically no meaningful
> conversation from her
> spouse for eight hours (and only one opportunity to
> get out of the car).
> I didn't get out from 1700Z until we stopped to eat
> and get gas at 0220Z
> in MNRO.  I'm probably getting to old for that. 
> PLEASE don't suggest
> lengthening the contest. (Okay, you can suggest it,
> but not this
> week....)
> 
> We skipped CHRS, knowing the SVRC group was on the
> SANG/CHRS line (at
> least, hoping they were...I never heard them) in
> order to get to MNRO,
> which we did, at 0029Z.  A lonely gravel road and a
> nice little flurry
> on 80 and 40 at the end....and silence.  Whew.
> 
> It looks like a "bottom line" of about 500 CW
> contacts and 13 (yes,
> 13....) SSB.  Five DXCC, 34 states/provinces (only
> one province), and
> somewhere around 40 counties (I logged on paper,
> remember...this is
> going to take awhile) for around 80,000 points.  As
> I mentioned earlier,
> I was a bit bummed about the score until I started
> reading other
> comments.  Maybe it wasn't so bad after all....
> 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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