Category: Contesting

Georgia QSO Party 2015

Spent some time playing in the Georgia QSO party this weekend. Band conditions were pretty terrible this weekend and I only worked a handful of stations on Saturday. I couldn’t even hear WWV on any of its frequencies, which is really unusual. Normally I can always hear the 10MHz WWV signal, but this weekend it wasn’t anywhere to be heard. Later in the evening the 15MHz WWV signal popped up, but that was it.

Spent most of Sunday at the radio tuning around 40m looking for more GA stations. Did a little better and ended up the weekend with 42 QSOs and 34 counties.

Highlights included:

  • 2 AB4 stations.
  • Worked KK4UBQ again. Worked her last year in the 2014 QP when she was signing as KK4UBQ/AG.
  • More QSOs, more counties than last year (although that wasn’t hard to beat).

Had a good time tuning around the bands, even though propagation was down in the dumps.

 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul
     7      42      42   34
 Total      42      42   34
Score: 1,428
1 Mult = 1.2 Q's

NC QSO Party 2015

Spent the afternoon yesterday playing in the North Carolina QSO Party and finished up with 49 contacts (including 2 bonus stations and 1 bonus county) and 40 multipliers. Like last year, it was all on 40m. There were a few very faint stations that I could hear on 20m, but none clear enough to work.

Haven’t worked out my final score yet (over 4000 according to N1MM+), but it easily topped last year’s total. Had a lot of fun playing in the contest and it was nice getting back to the radio.

RAC Winter Contest 2014

Spent a few hours at the radio this weekend playing in the RAC Winter contest. Finished out the contest with 26 contacts and 3000 points, including 3 RAC stations (VO1RAC, VA2RAC, and VE4RAC). Covered 3 bands (10, 20 and 40m) with most of my contacts happening on 20m.

I was using the new N1MM+ logger for the first time, and I have to say, it’s pretty good. As a contest logger, it’s hard to beat N1MM or N1MM+ for simplicity.

It was a pretty good time on the radio and I enjoyed hunting around the bands.

Radio fun for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014

Had a good time playing radio as WX4CHS yesterday morning for Skywarn Recognition Day. The Charleston NWS office seems like a pretty neat place.

Tom/AJ4UQ brought along his radio and setup for digital radio, and we spent the morning operating WX4CHS on 40m and 20m PSK as well as monitoring the local VHF repeaters. Made just under 30 PSK contacts and one repeater contact.

Tom/AJ4UQ doing some PSK for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014
Tom/AJ4UQ doing some PSK for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014


For SKYWARN Recognition Day, WX4CHS is working 40M at 7.070 frequency. Looking forward to making contact! #SRDay14 pic.twitter.com/7ydRnSiA7d
— NWS Charleston, SC (@NWSCharlestonSC) December 6, 2014

This was my first time doing an event like this, and it was a lot of fun. Had a great time playing radio there, and the staff at NWS Charleston were great hosts.