From NG9R
10/22/2007 2:09:37 PM (0 comments) 
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There oughta be a law…
My second trip as a county line portable didn’t fare any better than the first one, but part of that was lack of preparation on my part. This year, I went by myself and decided there was no reason to drag the trailer out for just one station and antenna. I thought this ought to be a walk in the park after last year. Boy, was I wrong, although I did get my station on the air a good bit earlier than last year.
I didn’t start loading up the truck until late Saturday afternoon and there were several last minutes decisions that affected what I took. At the last minute I decided against the generator, partly because it is a pain to load and unload plus I wasn’t sure I wanted to have it running in the bed of the truck while I was operating in the cab, thus making me load and unload it another couple of times. I finally decided I would run off of the truck battery and just make sure I didn’t run the battery too low to start the engine.
I used my Kenwood TS480HX at 200 watts and never had a problem at all with battery voltage or RF. I was amazed! I did start the truck about every hour and ran it for 10 minutes in an attempt to keep the battery at the point I could start at the end of the day.
Once again I pressed the only tree within 500 feet of the county corners into service, a fairly large DEAD maple. Using my trusty recurve bow, heavy fish arrow and a spinning rod and real, I was able to get a rope over the top of the tree for one support of my G5RV antenna. The other end was to tie to a mast mounted to the hitch on my truck. There I ran into my first problem.
The mast is some really decent military surplus stuff, 8 four foot section and stacks up very nicely. I had used it at home for several weeks with a small 2 meter vertical and it worked like a champ. The plan was to pull one end of the antenna up to the top of the tree, assemble the mast laid out behind the truck, attach the other end of the antenna, raise the mast vertical on my homemade pivot mount and back the truck up until the antenna was in the position I wanted it. Well, everything worked well until I stood the mast up vertical. The 30+ mph wind was hitting the antenna wire at right angles and the windload of the antenna and mast was more than my homemade mount could handle. I was holding the mast up and trying to get the mount secured when I realized if I started to let go of the mast, the force of the wind was bending the tabs on my mount. After standing there for several minutes trying to think of a way to use it as it was with a bit of rope guys, it came to me my mount would bend beyond use if I did not help hold the mast up. I did finally walk the mast back down and took several sections out and put it back up. Success!! Now all I had to do was to attach the coax to the end of the 300 ohm twinlead and back the truck up to raise the antenna to about 30 feet. No problem, I thought I was on the way. I fired the computer up, fed the coax into the truck and the tuner would not match the antenna! WHAT?! I had used this combination before, most recently at Field Day and it had loaded great. Now what? I wasn’t even hearing band noise. I switched to the mobile antenna and the band came to life. Great, now what’s wrong? All that work to get the G5RV up and it wasn’t any better than an open coax. Wait, did I say open coax? Antennas perform much better when the coax attaches to both the antenna and the radio. Another trip outside, this time almost blowing everything out of the cab of the truck as I opened the passenger door to screw the coax into the back of the tuner and I was ready to go.
As usual, I started on 40 meters, looking for loud stations. Where was every one? I work a VE3 take was calling CQ Illinois, but nothing very loud and nothing inside of Illinois. OK, the band is bad, I’ll go to 20. On 20 meters I was hearing a lot of signals, but no one calling CQ Illinois. Where was everyone. I tuned around, heard a lot of DX, a couple of nets from down in the southeast, an NL7 trying to work a 9 (maybe and Illinois station in the ILQP). I went back to 40 and looked around for the normally LOD stations. I did finally hear K8MR and he was real loud. I tried calling him a couple of times but he kept CQ’ing in my face. I tune down the band and there was N9UM. Mark is always loud and he was barely S5. I spent 10 minutes trying to make myself heard but no luck. Down the band I hear K9ZO and guess what? Ralph wasn’t able to hear me either. Sheesh! WB9Z was S9, but same story, he couldn’t hear me either. I did finally manage to work a few out of state contacts and notice my received signals had dropped way off, even the line noise I was hearing was almost gone. I look up to se if my antenna was still up and there was a large limb (remember it was a DEAD tree?) leaning across my antenna. As I watched, the limb started sliding on the antenna wire until it caught itself on the center insulator. The antenna had drooped to about 10 feet off the ground and my poor mast looked like a fishing rod with Moby Dick on the end of the line. I was about ready to pack up and go home.
After another half hour of maneuvering the truck around and getting the antenna back up, it is ready to go so, no sense in quitting now try again. Still nobody I could raise on 40 meters, even calling CQ at the upper end of the band. I try 20 again and it doesn’t seem to be near as busy as it was, almost no DX being heard. I called CQ ILQP on 4 different frequencies for the next 20 minutes and absolutely no taker.
Now I am really frustrated, all this work and I am just bull headed enough to keep at it. The wind did finally start to die done and with it some of my line noise. On a whim I went to 75 meters. Hey, there are a couple of LOUD guys rag chewing and they were 9’s! Not contest types but they were much louder than anything I heard on 40. I cll CQ and finally get my first solid QSO inside Illinois. I looked at the clock and it wasn’t 3 PM yet. OK, the band seems good, much quieter than it was on 40, but still very few signals that were working the ILQP. Back to 40 and I manage to squeak out a QSO with NA9Q. I try to tell him to try 75 meters but I can’t quite understand what his answer was. Oh well, I guess I’ll keep trying on 40 and pass the word that 75 meters is the place to be. After a few more failed attempts with K9ZO, NA9A and N9UM, I finally manage to work K9CT. That is it on 40, I can’t even hear anyone else that seems to be part of the ILQP. I try 20 again with no takers. What a waste of time. I go back to 75 and guess what? Several others realized that was where the propagation was and it was a blast for a few minutes. I worked all those I heard calling CQ and parked on a spot and tried calling myself. Finally, success!! Someone must have spotted me on the DX cluster because I actually had a short run and everyone expresses there surprise at how strong the signals are. After a few minutes the crowd thins out and I tune around a bit. I tried another CQ and raised a couple of more stations, and Stan, K9IUQ, stopped by. I had just bought a radio from Stan the week before and asked if he would get on for the ILQP. Stan lives in Union, one of the rare southern counties. He had been having a blast. Stan is not a contester and said he was having trouble handling the pileups on CW, so he started tuning around on phone and heard me. As we compared notes, several others stopped by for the new multipliers and to pass the time. We worked half dozen or more stations while rag chewing back and forth ourselves. Stan said he needed to walk around a bit, so he left and things were still looking good on 75 meters, so I made a couple more passes across the band. It was getting crowded, both with those in the ILQP as well as the normal 75 meter phone bunch. I searched and pounced the rest of the afternoon on 40 and 75 until the sun hit the horizon, dropped the antenna and mast and started home. After I got on the road, I was listening to N9UM on 75 meters and thought, I am only 2 miles from the Brown county line, I’ll bet there are several that missed N9JF earlier. I called N9UM and asked if he needed Brown county. He replied I would be his hero if I could do that. I made a short trip on a gravel road and crossed into Brown county to hand out a few mobile contacts on 75 meters. Who knew I could actually make QSO’ on 75 meter phone during the ILQP?
It was interesting and fun, again I learned a lot about how much I didn’t know, stressed my patience, and thought of several things to do different next time. If you haven’ tried it, operating on a county line or mobile in the ILQP is a rewarding experience, even if the score is ridiculously low. Jump in, the water is fine!
NG9R
Check out My Pictures for a couple of shots of the portable setup used this year.
