From RhinoHome

CQP 2008 is over!! We had a great time.

The Story

Wednesday

I come home early from work and get the RV out of storage. About 5 pm I started packing the RV with everything I need so that I do not have to pack in the morning. Also, by packing the day before I will not forget anything.

I load the RV with Doug's K3, Icom IC-2KL linear, MFJ 500w tuner and supplies. I also load all the computer gear: 3 laptops, a desktop, keyboards, two LCD displays and wireless network switches.

Having load all the heavy stuff on the RV, I take a short break. After the break I grab the Rhino flag Vivian had made for the expedition. I just have to insert a pair of grommets in the flag. I had tried to do this Tuesday night but I was missing the anvil part of the grommet kit. Vivian warned me to be careful with the hamer. I found the anvil Wednesday morning just before heading to work.

The first grommet is hammer in without incident. The second grommet was almost done when for reasons unknown I looked to my right and smash &*%$@#&@(+ stupid $#&@*(#&$() hammer. Hammer's and left index fingers do not get along. That's right I smashed the hammer squarely on the nail, the index finger nail. @#&*($#@ that hurts. Time for some ice. I ice the finger for about 30 minutes and then return to finish the grommet. No more incidents.

I finish loading the RV with everything I can think of by about 10 pm. I return the RV to storage and prepare to retire for the evening. I notice I forgot to put the bandpass filters in the RV. I set them aside where I know I will see them in the morning. (Pay close attention here. This will come back to haunt me.)

The finger is throbbing and hurting. Definitely swollen, probably broken. Too late to go to anything but an ER. I am not up to a 3+ hour wait in the ER. I take some Aleve and try to sleep. What a fitful sleep.

Thursday

I awaken around 7:30 am. Well, actually I decide to get out of bed. I probably did not get much more that 3 hours of sleep and the longest was about 1 hour from 4am to 5am. I quickly dress and head out to get McDonalds for breakfast. Wait, I think the Urgent Care at Palo Alto Medical foundation opens at 8am. The finger has been throbbing all night. The finger is swollen and the nail is very purple and black. I need to get the pressured relieved.

I am in luck, I am the first patient this morning. I get in and see the doctor. An X-Ray (to prove that only the tip is broken and the joint is OK), a cauterized hole in the nail, a splint ( to protect the finger from contact with objects) and 50 minutes latter and I am on my way to breakfast.

I grab breakfast, pick up the RV from storage and finish packing the RV with some last minute items. I scan the house and grab a few last minute items I forgot, umbrellas, jackets and some of my Rhino QSL cards. OK, everything is loaded.

Oh wait. I better put the new wiper blades on the RV. We are expecting rain this trip. Try this with only one hand. More &*(%@#$ #&@(#&# ))*#&#@ pain and delays.

With the sore finger this has taken longer than I intended. I originally planned on heading up at 9am. It is now 11am. OK, this is better than last year when I did not leave until almost 2pm. But still latter than I wanted.

I get fill the RV with gasoline at the local Chevron and head out. I stop at the Camping World in Fairfield to dump waste water and fill my propane tank. This takes about an hour and a half. I stop in Red Bluff off of Antelope to fill the RV gas tank again. It's now about 5pm. I call Tom WB6HYD and find out he has just gotten to I-5 (from I-505). He is running about 1 hour behind me.

I get to the site about 5:30 pm. I carefully park the RV, level it, push out the sides and eat the dinner I bought at the Chinese restaurant by the gas station on Antelope. I turn on the TV and find that the Vice presidential debates will be on the only station I can get. Tom and I will watch these latter.

I remove the 35 foot mast from the RV and set it up on the back of the RV as a flag pole. I attach the Rhino flag and run it up the pole. I only extended the mast about 20 feet.

I also get the boom and the driven element for my Mosley TA-33 out of the center floor area of the RV. These are too big to transport in the RV basement.

I start unpacking the K3 and assorted computer equipment. I try and make the place a little neater but that is almost a waste. I did not pack up cleanly from Field Day this year and so I have a total mess. Nothing is easy to find. I promise myself I will make an effort to organize all the gear better when I leave this year.

Where are the band pass filters ? Did I leave them at home ? I call Vivian and ask her if the band pass filters are at home. Yes they are right where I left them. %*$#&@. OK, how to recover. Ken is not coming up until tomorrow. I call Ken and leave a message to call Vivian. I leave Vivian a message with Ken's information.

Friday

I wake up about 7:30 am. Grab some breakfast for me and Tom. Vivian calls and says she has the band pass filters with her at work. If Ken calls she can arrange to meet him.

We start unpacking the wire antennae and feed cables. Looks like it may rain today. We find the 80m-40m fan dipole. We set it up.

Where is the 160m dipole ? Oh no, not another item left at home. I know exactly where it was in the garage on Wednesday night. I thought I put it in the RV. Vivian, can you get the 160m antenna from the workbench in the garage and give that to Ken? Ken hasn't called? Could you bring the antenna and the band pass filters up to Tehama please ? You will? Thank you, I owe you.

Quickly, I call Trilogy (a Spa in Red Bluff) and make a two hour appointment for Vivian on Saturday (She will be staying at the Casino in Corning. Ouch!).

I go into the front basement on the drivers side to get the 10x10 patio out. Look at that a 160m antenna. Vivian, You can forget about the antenna, I found it. You have a Spa appoint tomorrow at 12:45 at Trilogy. Thank you so much.

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

I wake up about 8am. I grab some eggs for breakfast. I start sorting my way through all the boxes of stuff. I carefully roll all the cables and tie them up with velcro wraps. I try and organize everything into groups of like stuff. All the USB/RS-232 interface stuff goes into one small container. The Andersen PowerPole stuff and small wall warts go into another small box.

Finally, about 12:30 I break camp and head back to town. I fill up the RV tank (used about 38 gallons of gasoline over the weekend) and grab McDonalds on the way out of Red Bluff. In Corning, I pull of I-5 and give the RV a bath. I miss the turn for I-505, so I head to Sacramento and take 80 back to Fairfield. This is the long way but once you miss I-505 it is several miles before you can turn around.

Again, I stop at Camping World and dump my waste tanks. I fill up at the Valero. I walk across the street and get a Chicken Cordon Bleu wrap from Arby's. I finally get home about 7pm. I unpack only a little of the RV (Refrigerator, computers, close and K3). Vivian helps with the unpacking. Which is a good thing as I am pretty tired. I return the RV to storage and by 8:30 I am sitting in my big comfy chair wondering over all that has happened over the last few days.

I put my desktop computer in place. Log on and check my 2357 emails since last Thursday morning. As the chairman of the California QSO party, I have a lot of emails and logs to deal with. I scan through the emails and put it off until Tuesday night. They are on my computer but I am too tired to deal with any of it.

Rest of notes

For now just some quick rambles... more after I catch up on all the logs for CQP including my own.

Left BPF's home, Vivian delivered, I paid up and will pay more for the next 6 months.

Tom N3ZZ arrives about 11:30am Friday.

John K6MI and Larry K6VLF arrive about 2pm on Friday.

Ken arrives about 4pm on Friday.

  Rained all during setup. No rotators working. Argument over which way is east. No compass to prove what was right.
  No logging computer on second K3. Never setup 3rd UHF, VHF station. Hand keyed about 1/2 second stations Q's until I got the K1EL programmed.
  20m SSB sucked but was one of our more productive bands. Did not start until almost 10 on Saturday. Did not operate 1am until 8am Sunday.
  Exhausted only 2 hours sleep Friday. No Voice keying. Great food. Great attitude from all participants. Met property owner, got retroactive permission for last year, this year and OK to come back next year. Currently, everyone invited to return next year. Tentative acceptance by all. Schedules permitting.
  About 100 more Q's this year and 2 less mults (maybe).

  Can confirm 15m existed we got 1 QSO.
  10m what is that?
  6m never tried. Antennae left on ground.
  2m worked 3.

  VLF - generators very quiet. Site great for VLF listening.
   K3 is awesome.
   EU-2000i ran 21 hours on 1.5 gallons for a light, 500w linear and a K3. Occasional laptop.

Images

Tower 1 50ft 5 element 10-15-20 (80-40 fan dipole in foreground) (K6MI and WB6HYD)	Assembling Mosley TA-33 3element 10-15-20 (N3ZZ)	Another view of Tower 1 with Rhinomobile in shot
The RhinoMobile houses station 1. Check out the flag.		Tower 2 40ft 3 element 10-15-20 and Shorty 40 (80-40 fan dipole in foreground).K6MI van houses station 2 & 3. Station 3 was only briefly on the air Sunday afternoon to pick up 3 quick 2m phone contacts
John K6MI at station 1, 80-10 with 40/20/15 bpf, 5el on 20/15/10		Tom N3ZZ at station 2 160-10 with 40/20/15 bpf, 3 el on 20/15/10, 2 el on 40

The Results

The Plan

Lots of stuff to plan and this year I am the big kahuna (CQP Chairman). Woohoo!!!!

This year Tehama is going to be Multi-Multi. A lot will depend on the number of operators and equipment that can be lined up.

We'd also like to get permission from the land owner to setup on in the trees instead of in the big public area off of A36. Now we just have to figure out from whom we need permission.

Radio Setup

• Elecraft K3
  • IC-2KL 500w linear
  • 5 element 10-15-20m beam
  • 40-80m Fan dipole
  • Dell Laptop
  • Filters
    • 40m, 20m, 15m
    • 2 4 position switches
    • 7 18 inch coax
  • Coax connections (outside filter)
    • 2 3-6ft coax
    • 1 2 position switch
• Elecraft K3
  • FL-7000 500w linear or Yaesu Quadra 1KW linear
  • 3 element Mosley 10-15-20m beam
  • 2 element 40m beam
  • 160m wire dipole
  • Acer Laptop
    • Filters
    • 40m, 20m, 15m
    • 2 4 position switches
    • 7 18 inch coax
  • Coax connections (outside filter)
    • 2 3-6ft coax
    • 1 3 position switch
• Icom IC-706MkIIG
  • 6m beam
  • 2m beam
  • Compaq Laptop
• Spares/Backups
  • Yaesu FT-100MP Mark V Field
  • Yaesu Quadra linear (1KW on 220, 500W on 110)

Terrain Analysis

Thanks to N6DE we have terrain profiles and analysis for the Tehama site. Basically, it's all downhill for 3 miles to the east. Not a 4,000 foot drop, but nothing to sneeze at either.

General Terrain Profile	15m - 2el@40ft, cyan is flat terrain
20m - 2el@40ft, cyan is flat terrain	40m - 2el@40ft, cyan is flat terrain

Equipment

N6TQS has been generous enough to lend us the following equipment:

• Elecraft K3 with sub receiver
• Icom IC-2KL Linear
• MFJ T Tuner
• Honda EU-2000i generator with remote 6 gallon tank

Filter Plots

We plotted the W3NQN Bandpass filters we are using with a network analyzer. These are really good 200W filters.

Antennae

I have a lot of wire antennae: 80-40-20-10 fan dipole (needs testing and some modifications for single line hang instead of line per band), 160-80-40 trapped dipole (very narrow on 160/80 but tunable, needs RF choke), G5RV (80-10) and G5RV-Lite (40-10). I also have two dipole center mounts and the wire to build more dipoles.

Picked up a (new to me) Mosley TA-33 (20-15-10 3el beam). Needs a little TLC. I have replacement insulators. Built a new feed cable and choke. Needs testing.

Along with a pair of 40 ft fiberglass 1.5inch (4ft segments) masts, I now have an approximately 35ft (maybe 40 ft) metal pop-up mast. This also could use some modifications for better setup and use. Needs some basic checking and cleaning.

We also have a pair of towers 40+ ft. Another 5el 20-15-10 beam. A 2el 40m beam.

Site Pictures

Pre Contest

Full site

Tom marking tower positions

We cloned Tom temporarily to mark the positions for the two towers and the mast.

On the left will be Ken's 50 ft tower with the 5 element 10-15-20 meter beam.

Center is Tom marking the position of the 40ft military mast and front of the Rhino mobile. This mast will hold the 6m and 2m beams.

On the right will be John's 40ft tower. This will hold the 40m beam and the TA-33m 10-15-20 3 element beam.

The 160m wire dipole will run from the point where this image was taken to the tree along the left road farthest away. Basically it runs on the right side of the road on the left.

The 80-40m dipole runs from the 2nd tree on the right (The first tree is where the Sable is parked) to the set of trees on along the left road.

Other Notes

Known 1x calls that will be operational during CQP

After Action Report

We were spotted

Software Supporting CQP

CQPDOS by AE6Y Free
CQPWIN by AE6Y Free
CQP503 by AD6E Free
CT by K1EA Free
GenLog by W3KM Free
miLog by K7MI $$ ($69-$89 as of July 21, 2008)
N1MM Free
N3FJP $$ ($6-$49 as of July 21, 2008)
SD from EI5DI Free
TRLOG by N6TR $$ ($60-$75 as of July 21, 2008)
WIN-EQF by N3EQF $$ (???)
Writelog $$ ($30 as of July 21, 2008)

Other Sites

• N6RC5 & K6TD
• K6RM on Flickr
• N6DE on fotki
• N6A in Alpine

Presentations

NCCC August 11 Presentation
NCCC September 10 Presentation
NCC October 13 Preliminary Results

Log Check Issues

SD EI5DI 14.06b - has 599 in exchange and leaves out home QTH

Writelog 10.67b - claims Cabrillo 3.0. Crashes server. Change 1st line to 2.0. Log reads in.