Tag: QSO party

Spent a few hours playing in the North Carolina QSO party, returning the favour for the NC stations that I got the previous day.

As usual with the nearby states, all the NCQP action I heard was on 40m, and all of them were coming in pretty loud.

Ended up the day with 47 contacts, 31 counties, and all but two of the bonus stations (N4[WRIGHT]) set up to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the Wright Brother’s first flight. I was just missing N4W and N4R. I did manage to work a W4W station though, but that was a different special event station.

Contest: NC QSOPARTY
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Pt/Q
     7      47      94   31   2.0
 Total      47      94   31   2.0
Score: 2,914
1 Mult = 1.5 Q's

Update 2023-05-30: The results for the 2023 NC QSO party were posted a few days ago and my 47 contacts got me 3114 points, including 200 bonus points. If I counted right, that put me at 31 out of 102 submitted logs in the out of state, phone, low power category.

Made it back to participating in the SC QSO party this year after missing it last year. Apparently, the county we’re in wasn’t activated at all last year, so several of the SC contacts I made were a bit surprised they were able to add the county to their list. Surprised me too considering how many hams there are in my neck of the woods.

We put the Half Wave Society club call, W4BXC, on the air for the QSO party this time and had some friends over to participate. Had a lot of fun and made a bunch of contacts in both run and search/pounce modes.

Most of the SCQP activity ended up on 40m with a smattering on 20m. 20m was pretty crowded with a lot of POTA activations, and I didn’t hear a lot of stations calling for SCQP. I was even able to make a contact down on the upper portion of 75m although the radio wasn’t very happy with the antenna there, judging by the SWR meter.

Ended up getting the two bonus stations as well (W4CAE and WW4SF), but the highlight stations were OM2VL (Slovakia), Connie’s dad WA4BXC, and NT7S and his boys in Oregon.

Had a good time getting back on the radio for the QSO party. Looking forward to doing again next year.

Contest: SC QSOPARTY
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Mt2  Pt/Q
   3.5       1       2    0    0   2.0
     7      63     184   29    1   2.9
    14      11      44    5    0   4.0
    28       3      12    3    0   4.0
 Total      78     242   37    1   3.1
Score: 9,946
1 Mult = 2.1 Q's

There hasn’t been a whole lot of radio activity going on here lately since Field Day.

There were four state QSO parties going on this weekend (AZ, NV, PA, SD).  After getting a SD station (W0SD), I decided to try to get at least one contact in the other three.  I wasn’t able to find any more SD stations, but I did manage three contacts in AZ, three in NV, and eight in PA.

While tuning around the other bands (there wasn’t a whole lot), I scored contacts with hams in the Dominican Republic and Slovenia.  There was also someone in Spain, but he had a bit of a pileup going that I wasn’t able to get through.

Also came across the AMSAT International net that I listened to for a little bit.

Good weekend to be on the air.

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.