FQP 2012 Wrap-Up
The FQP was one week ago, and I’m already preparing for the next one. Once again I worked the event from the county of Okeechobee (OKE), a county that would otherwise be covered by mobiles only. A couple of years ago as I prepared for my first FQP I thought that I could be of better use to the event if I operated from a different county than I live in (Brevard). There are a couple of stations that operate from Brevard County annually, so I decided that I’d find a county that needed a station all weekend. Okeechobee is about a 2 hour drive from my home, so I decided that was the place.
I operated from the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. It’s a nice area to set up; plenty of room to get an antenna up in the air, and it’s remote. I have a travel trailer, so operating remotely is enjoyable, albeit all the additional setup of the ham gear. While it will take me about 1 hour to get my travel trailer parked, leveled, and hooked up to electricity and water, it takes more than double that time to get my antenna(s) up in the air and my rig set up. But I enjoy it and the time goes by quickly.
Its become tradition for me to grill up a nice steak the night before the event kicks off. Add some Pinto beans, a couple pieces of bread-n-butter and a few shakes of hot sauce on the beans and its ready to go. My mouth is watering just writing about it now.
My station was an Icom IC-7000 transceiver and LDG IT-100 tuner hooked to a homemade hex-beam and a homemade 40-meter dipole hung in an inverted V. Low power (100w), single operator, non-assisted, all SSB. I operated for about 18 of the 20 hours over the two-day event. I did much better than last year, doubling my score on Saturday than I had for the entire weekend a year earlier. Saturday’s conditions were great, especially on 20 meters (for me, anyway). Sunday rolled around and it seemed conditions dropped off considerably. While I managed over 400 contacts on Saturday, I only managed roughly 100 contacts all day Sunday.
My claimed totals are as follows:
10 meters: 5 QSO’s
15 meters: 84 QSO’s
20 meters: 400 QSO’s
40 meters: 49 QSO’s
Total QSO’s: 538
Contact Multipliers: 70
Power Multiplier: 2
Total Claimed Score: 75320
Below are a couple of photos of my antennas. You can click on any of the photos to see a larger view, and (while the photos are enlarged) you can scroll through the photos by clicking on the left or right side of the photos. 73.
I stick the bottom of my hex beam in the ground then attach the spreaders. The spreaders slide into aluminum tubes that I drilled out so the spreaders will slip inside. One end of the aluminum tubes are epoxied on to each of the spreaders so they will stay in place.
Photo of the Hex Beam in the air. Note that it only has 3 wires wrapped around the beam. While I built the Hex Beam for 6 bands (6m, 10m, 12m 15m 17m and 20m), the FQP operates on 4 bands: 10m, 15m, 20m and 40m. To save some time (and a little weight), I only strung the Hex Beam for 10m, 15m, and 20m, and used a dipole that I built for 40m.
This is a close-up of the base of the Hex Beam, mounted about 25′ in the air. Just below the base of the Hex Beam is a plastic square. That is the 1:1 balun (it is mounted on the plastic square, and the photo shows the back-side of the square so the balun isn’t quite visible). Each side of the 40m dipole is attached to that balun. Each wire is hanging straight down right now; I haven’t pulled them tight yet.










