Category: Contesting

South Carolina QSO Party 2018

This year, my plan for the South Carolina QSO party was to head on over to the club station on the USS Yorktown to activate WA4USN for a few hours, then come back home and finish off the rest of the day playing under my own call sign.

On the Yorktown, I was joined by Tom,AJ4UQ, and we operated WA4USN for about 5 hours (I was there for 4) and had a pretty good time making a bunch of QSO in the contest. The first couple of hours were pretty slow. On 20m, there were lots of rag chews, the French REF contest going on, but not much activity for the QSO party. Found some more activity down on 40m, but it wasn’t until after noon that things really picked up. Band conditions seemed pretty decent on 20m and 40m, with stations across the country in WA and CA coming in loud and clear. We ended up the day with 167 contacts and a score of 15088 points. A fun time operating on the ship.

After getting back home, I got the antenna and the radio set up outside on the back patio and started tuning around the bands. My first contact was on 40m with OM2VL in the Slovak Republic calling for SCQP. Happy I was able to give him a new multiplier for his day.

Found an open frequency on 40m and called for a while, making a few more contacts, then took a break to tend to the dogs. Noticed the house was feeling pretty cool, and found that the AC was running even though the Nest thermostat was saying it was Off. After futzing around with the Nest a while and resetting breakers, I decided the Nest was borked and set about switching it out with the original thermostat that came with the house. That pretty much derailed my plans for the rest of the QSO party.

So, I finished off the SC QSO party with 5 contacts. Didn’t get to play nearly as long as I was hoping to. Guess I’ll have to try again next year.

Not sure what caused the Nest to fail (actually, the base of the Nest). I’ve had a previous Nest base fail on me a few years ago so it could have been a coincidence. Can’t rule out the possibility that the Nest base got zapped by some RF while I was playing on the radio. It’s not the first time I’ve been on the air here though, and none of those times seemed to have bothered the Nest.

Tennessee QSO Party 2017

Spent a few hours playing in the Tennessee QSO Party over the weekend.

As expected, all the TN stations I was able to hear were on 40 m. Made a few more contacts than I did last time, but I think more counties this time. Wasn’t able to find the bonus station though.

 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Pt/Q
     7      27      81   21   3.0
 Total      27      81   21   3.0
Score: 1,801
1 Mult = 1.3 Q's

Wasn’t hearing a whole lot of activity across the bands in general, but the 40m shortwave broadcast stations that usually show up in the upper portion of 40m late afternoon/early evening seemed extra loud when they appeared.

It’s nice having the shack back up and running, even if setting up and taking down the antenna means it takes a little more time to get set up.

NA and Eclipse QSO parties

Got the antenna up this weekend to participate in a couple of events. It’s the first significant amount of radio activity I’ve done at the house since moving from the old house.

On Saturday I spent a few hours tuning around the bands working the NAQP SSB contest. Managed a couple dozen contacts casually spinning the dial around on 20 m and 40 m.

On eclipse day, I managed to get a few contacts in the Solar Eclipse QSO Party in the morning. Didn’t hear too many stations on 20m, but there were a few. I heard a couple of stations out in Washington State, but couldn’t get through the pileup they had going. Made contacts with three other stations participating in the eclipse QSO party and made periodic checks on the WWV broadcasts (heard 10 MHz faintly at times, but 15 MHz was coming in loud and clear).

Sadly I had to shut everything down due to a thunderstorm moving in just before the eclipse started so I wasn’t able to make any more contacts or monitor the bands as the eclipse happened.

Good weekend on the air.

CQ WW 2015 log check

The log check for the 2015 CQ WW contest landed in my email a few days ago. Only one busted QSO due to NIL (Not In Log). Not bad, although 0 would be better. That brought me down to 108 contacts and a final score of 24119.

Looking forward to being back on the air in time for the next CQ WW.

************************** Summary ***************************

     109 Claimed QSO before checking (does not include duplicates)
     108 Final   QSO after  checking reductions

     280 Claimed QSO points
     271 Final   QSO points

      59 Claimed countries
      59 Final   countries

      30 Claimed zones
      30 Final   zones

      89 Claimed mults
      89 Final   mults

   24920 Claimed score
   24119 Final   score

    3.2% Score reduction
    0.9% Error Rate based on claimed and final qso counts
       0 (0.0%) calls copied incorrectly
       0 (0.0%) exchanges copied incorrectly
       1 (0.9%) not in log
       0 (0.0%) duplicates (Removed without penalty)
       0 (0.0%) calls unique to this log only (not removed)

********************** Results By Band ***********************

             Band   QSO  QPts  Zone Cty Mult

   Claimed   160M     0     0     0   0    0
   Final     160M     0     0     0   0    0

   Claimed    80M     0     0     0   0    0
   Final      80M     0     0     0   0    0

   Claimed    40M     1     3     1   1    2
   Final      40M     1     3     1   1    2

   Claimed    20M    24    59    13  17   30
   Final      20M    24    59    13  17   30

   Claimed    15M     0     0     0   0    0
   Final      15M     0     0     0   0    0

   Claimed    10M    84   218    16  41   57
   Final      10M    83   209    16  41   57

   Claimed    All   109   280    30  59   89  Score    24920
   Final      All   108   271    30  59   89  Score    24119

************************* Not In Log *************************

28532 PH 2015-10-24 2139 AB4UG            5 LT0H            13

*******************  Multipliers by band  ********************

160M multiplier total 0





80M multiplier total 0





40M multiplier total 2

OK    

 15

20M multiplier total 30

CM    EI    FM    HC    HI    HK    HK0/a KG4   KL    OH    
P4    PJ4   PY    SM    TF    VE    YV    

  1  2  3  4  5  7  8  9 10 11 14 15 40

15M multiplier total 0





10M multiplier total 57

9A    CE    CN    CT    CT3   CX    D4    DL    EA    EA8   
F     FG    FJ    FM    FS    FY    HK    HK0/a HP    IT9   
JA    K     KP2   KP4   LU    OA    P4    PA    PJ2   PJ7   
PY    TI    V2    V4    VE    VK    VP2M  VP2V  XE    YN    
YV    

  3  4  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 25 30 33 35