[ILQSO] Thanks from K9IUA/Rover/QRP

[Kevin Anderson]

Don't have a score yet - the logs will get looked at tonight and tomorrow (I know it is not good) - but I want to thank all who worked the peanut-sized signal of K9IUA/Rover/QRP.  I don't know why I do it (a QRPer at heart and blood), but QRP from mobile Hamstick antennas is always a challenge, yet I do it again and again.  I'm obviously not in it for the points (although it is depressing when they aren't very high), but more to support the cause, my club, and to get a drive around rural northwestern Illinois each year.  The weather this year was perfect!

While you guys are raving about 80 and 40 meters this year, I say thank goodness for 20 meters!  Without 20 meters, I wouldn't have much of a score at all.  Worked F5 several times, HA once, as well as Nova Scotia.

Forty meters (the lowest band I can go with my mobile setup) is always a challenge for me.  The problem is two-fold - my tuner just barely gets me a good match (and this year I was plagued with problems in two of the counties that wasted huge amount of time - a loose connection or something in the tuner that I need to diagnose) and I can't hold a frequency.  Usually by my last stop, Jo Daviess County late in the afternoon, I do quite well on 40, with 20 usually dead by then.  But the reverse was true this time - I did well on 20 (probably because I was one of the last willing to use the band at that time of day), and barely got anywhere on 40.  With RTTY taking out much of the operating space on 40, you guys with your stronger signals held court over all the rest.  I couldn't compete.  I soon as I find a frequency, after a QSO or two, someone walks right over me and takes it over, like I didn't exist.  Oh well.  But 40 meter was nice earlier on, before
 there was so much RTTY and before my tuner gave me trouble, as I did get some very nice in-state multipliers who answered my CQ.

This year I was plagued with problems.  Besides the already mentioned intermittent tuner short, the battery in my Bencher keyer/paddle combination died in my second county.  And the spares I had brought also turned out also to be dead.  So for two counties I had to operate using my spare setup, which is a plastic Whiterook portable paddle into the rig's keyer; while functional, my keying gets far worse than my already mediocre keying on a good day, as I the action is all different and the rig's keyer is I believe the opposite mode than I am used to.  It wasn't until my fourth county that I finally drive through a town with a Casey's open that could sell me a new 9-volt battery (spending the $5 I had been saving for supper).

Always next year.  Thanks for the QSOs!

Kevin, K9IUA

P.S. A special public apology and thank you to KV8Q.  I had problem with his call every time he worked me.  I obviously still have trouble with V's and 4's despite all my years of doing CW, because every time he called I wanted to make his call out to be K4ZQ or something else.  I owe him a beer or something, as he hung in there and worked me multiple times throughout my operation.  Thanks, Tom!  I will have to check the log later, but either Tom or my old friend, John, AA5JG, worked me the most times.
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Kevin Anderson, Dubuque IA USA, K9IUA
k9iua (at) yahoo (dot) com
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