Sand Bar NAQP

NAQP is one of my favorite contests, but I rarely operate the August one because it conflicts with outdoor activities.  Since I've been operating "bicycle portable" this summer, I thought I would give it a try on a Wisconsin River canoe trip.  Bonnie and I have been doing these trips every summer for many years, and know the lower Wisconsin well.  We camped on a sand bar a couple miles downstream of Spring Green, one of our favorite spots.

I wouldn't have attempted operating from a sand bar without the 11.5 meter fishing pole I've been using on bike trips.  While there are often trees around, the woods are full of poison ivy, mosquitoes, and ticks.  It took only 3 sand stakes with a hundred pounds of sand piled on them to hold up the pole.  There was no shortage of sand.

Antenna Support

On sunny days, we always set up the sun shade if we're going to lounge around, so I had a shady place to operate.  We had to move it twice Saturday as the earth went around, but one position was good for the 3 hours I operated.  The longer end of the 40 M end fed half wave wire was supported by one of the sun shade poles, while the shorter end had a long piece of fishing line going to a stake in the ground.  The fishing pole supports the wire about a fourth the way from the far end, like an asymmetrical inverted V.  It seems to work fairly well on 20 and 40 meters.

Sun Shade

The KX1 puts out 4-5 W on 40 and 20 meters.  A little homebrew tuner matches the end fed wire.  The counterpoise is just a short piece of wire on the ground.

While I suppose I could have used the netbook for logging, I didn't have time to set it up, so I logged on paper.  (The netbook is way too heavy for bike trips, anyway.)

Logging

Remember those paper crosschecks?

Paper Crosscheck!

Three hours hunched over the radio from that little chair was enough for my aging back, but by then it was time for happy hour, anyway.

I ended up with 131 QSO's and 45 mults. When I got home, I entered the log into N1MM+, fully intending to send in, Sadly, I never could get N1MM+ to show the correct times, so I couldn't send in the log.  I'm still not sure whether it's a bug in the software or in the operator.

************

North American QSO Party, CW - August 2016

Call: K9MA
Operator(s): K9MA
Station: K9MA

Class: Single Op QRP
QTH: WI
Operating Time (hrs): 3

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:           
   40:   25    15
   20:  106    30
   15:           
   10:           
-------------------
Total:  131    45  Total Score = 5,895


Comments:

The weather forecast looked great for a three day Wisconsin River canoe trip, so I took along the "Bicycle Portable" station and set it up on a sand bar. Just operated for a few hours at the beginning of the contest. Between setting up the antenna and the sun shade, I probably shoveled 5 pounds of sand for every contact, but it was fun anyway.


Canoe Portable:

KX1, end fed 40 M half wave, 11.5 M fishing pole support