This past weekend I participated in the NM QSO Party as an in-state mobile. K5AKS (my wife) and I drove over to NM on Saturday morning. Since the QSO party didn't start until 10:00 a.m. MST it was easy to get into NM from TX without having to head out too early.

We arrived in Hobbs about 30 minutes before the start of the QSO party. I rigged up my laptop, keyer, GPS, etc to get ready. The first problem I had was getting the GPS going. I use a Garmin GPS 18 USB. The GPS 18 USB uses a propriety format so to be able to use it with my logging program, CQ/X by NO5W, I have to use a Garmin program called Spanner. However, Spanner did not seem to be passing the data to the virtual com port I had set up. So, as a fallback I connected the GPS I normally use for APRS. It seemed to be working so I was in business.

I was a few minutes late starting the contest by the time I got the GPS going. Then the logging program froze. After about an hour battling that problem I finally figured out I had an RF problem causing the logging program to lock up. I had added a second antenna to my truck. In addition to my High Sierra HS-1500 screwdriver type antenna I had installed my Texas Bugcatcher antenna to give me the ability to quickly switch bands. In hindsight, the serial cable running to the GPS was picking up some RF from the bugcatcher coax. I quit using the bugcatcher and worked the contest with the screwdriver antenna and didn't have any more problems.

In total we drove through ten New Mexico counties. The route covered about 630 miles from Midland to Santa Fe. I finished with 259 QSO's and 47 mulitipliers. Of the 47 multipliers I only worked four NM counties.

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