On the Monday before the CQP weekend, we left our home QTH in Santa Monica to make the drive to our vacation home in Mammoth Lakes in Mono County.  Due to the California forest fires, the smoke had become a big factor in the air quality in Mono County.  On Tuesday it was very smoky, but we woke up Wednesday morning to blue skies again…it was very dependent on which way the wind was blowing.  The timing was good as I spent the entire day on Wednesday launching the guy lines and putting my wire antennas up in the surrounding pine trees.

This year’s antennas consisted of dipoles for 40, 20 and 15M plus an inverted V for 80M.   

Murphy Visits –

Saturday Afternoon - I was operating on 20 CW and found RFI was causing N1MM to erratically effect the cursor movements and my ability to log QSOs.  I finally had to stop and trouble shoot the problem.   Lost about an hour of prime time beginning at 2100 UTC.

Saturday Evening – Around 0200 UTC, I was in middle of a nice run on 40 CW and zap - all of the power shut off in my entire condo...everything went dark.  Sorry, whoever I was working did not get logged.  Resetting the electrical panel circuit breakers didn’t bring back the power.  After calling my electrician I discovered that the master circuit breaker for my unit was inside of a locked storage shed attached to the side of my building and I needed to call the condo project manager to unlock the door so I could reset the master breaker. I lost about another hour...oh well.

In spite of the Murphy visits, I was able to reach my goal of making 1,000 CW QSOs and finish with a respectable total score for a Single Operator, County Expedition station.   I have never made 1,000 CW QSOs in any contest so it was good to finally tick off a new milestone.

The good participation helped offset missing 10M and most of 15M during the weekend.  I missed NT and ND for the sweep, but was happy to achieve good results with a full-time effort minus about two hours for Murphy.  And many thanks to the NCCC for sponsoring another great CQP!  And also thanks to Hank, W6SX, who lives about 1/2 mile from my place in Mammoth, for helping me with my antenna planning and sharing the bands during CQP.

Rig: Elecraft K3S, AL80B Amp, 40, 20 and 15M Dipoles and an 80M Inverted V', all at 60 ft plus 8,000ft Above Sea Level

Smoky Poor Air Quality from the California Fires was not good for us or the Birds
All wire Antennas - Three Dipoles and an 80m Inverted Vee up about 60ft in the pine trees

Lots of Coax and Wires were needed between the AL80B Amp, KAT500 Tuner, K3S, P3 and Logging Computer

	CQP 2020 County Expedition Station W6ML in Mammoth Lakes, Mono County

	Fall in Mono County in the beautiful High Sierra is always a great place to operate in the CQP