Today, I worked two hams operating CW from their cars. The first one lived in the Houston area; I worked him in the morning on his way to work. The second mobile CW station was in Virginia. He was on his way to pick up his wife from work in the afternoon.
The amazing thing about this–or one of them anyway–is that they made fewer keying mistakes than I did, even though they were driving around while I was just sitting on my butt.
Phil, near Dallas wrote me about his setup. He says,
“I drive a Ford Taurus 96 Model. It has a center console between the two front seats, so I built a combination table and rig support out of particle board so it could be slipped in and out as required. I drilled four holes in the rig holding board for the feet of the rig to set down into and then I used a web strap with quick release snaps to hold the rig in place. I put a 1/2-inch thick piece of foam rubber (the same kind of rubber which hobby shops sell for surrounding gas tanks for the R/C powered model aircraft) between the rig and the board surface. This way, the road shock does not effect the rig. I used the same mounting technique for the key.
“The mobile station is comprised of a fully loaded Elecraft K2 with power from the car. The key paddle is a bencher black and chrome model and the antenna is a trunk lip mounted 20 meter or 40 meter Hamstick.
“I keep a note pad handy and only take down the call, and name. The rest of the information is in my head as I am copying code in my head also. It took me several months to get used to not writing everything down. Now, I am running between 20 and 23 wpm copying code in my head and remembering most.
“I do not carry a log with me and only record the results of the days conversation after arriving to work or home. A lots of times stations will tell me we have worked before, but without the log everything is pretty much a blur.
“Since most of my driving is freeway style driving, I simply key the rig with my free right hand. I have about an hour commute each way every day to work. I obtained my FISTS Century Award Certificate, Fists QRP Award Certificate and Fists Mobile Award Certificate all the same time by working FISTS stations QRP mobile only. My FISTS No. is 9352 and my CC No. is 1325.
“Currently I have over 225 FISTS contacts toward my next award. I have worked all but 7 states using the QRP Mobile set-up and over 25 different countries. My best DX, longest distance of over 8,000 miles with 5 watts, and the most interesting QSO was with an Australian VK7 station.”
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