Florida QSO Party
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): K6UFO AE6EJ AE6KU AA6XV N6DE
Station: W6YX
Class: SchoolMixed LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
40: 24 1
20: 175 37
15: 69 42
10: 16 18
--------------------
Total: 284 98 CW Mults = 67 Ph Mults = 39 Total Score = 141,192
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
(we'll be either a M/S or a School entry, pending a rules clarification from the
FCG)
Since there was no conflict this year with the Visalia DX Convention, we were
able to activate the Stanford club station in FQP. We had an intense 4-square
antenna work party at W6YX for ten hours on Saturday, so several of us balanced
our time between helping with the work party and operating FQP. Some of our
operators were club members fairly new to contesting. FQP was a good
opportunity for them to operate in a low stress contest while also learning the
station and becoming more familiar with Writelog.
FQP is overwhelmingly a 20m contest for stations in Florida. On the west coast,
we had a few hours in our morning and a few in the late afternoon/early evening
when propagation was reasonable to Florida on 20m. In between, 20m propagation
was dreadful. We made *many* QSOs on 20m that were S0-S2. We also experienced
a lot of QSB on 20m.
At least from W6YX, 15m was wide open nearly the entire contest! We made QSOs
on 15m in 15 of the 20 hours of FQP. Many signals were loud. I specifically
remember W4/G4BUE being 59+20dB on that band. The problem was that the
Floridian masses were just not on 15m much. I guess it's understandable given
the 20m pipeline from FL into the east coast and midwest, but it's still
disappointing for us on the west coast.
10m was solidly open to south Florida, as far north as Hillsborough County, in
the last four hours of the contest on Sunday. Again, there were great signals,
but hardly any action.
We called "CQ Florida" on 10m and 15m, with limited success. Most of the
stations returning our CQs were not in Florida. It became so funny after a
while that Mark K6UFO and I started a list of states that called us! Attention
K4OJ: Is there an FQP award for Worked All States while calling "CQ Florida"?
Despite good signals on the high bands, we regularly drifted back to 20m for
more punishment to work S0 signals. Tracking the mobiles on 20m CW was really
the only way to get a sweep.
Thanks to all the mobiles for digging out our low power signal. K4FQP, K4FCG,
and N4TO had terrific ears! I was amazed that they pulled W6YX out of the ether
so many times. KN4Y consistently had the strongest mobile signal the entire
weekend on 20m. Our last county needed was Gadsden. I heard W5WMU/GAD on 20m,
and must have called him for ten minutes, but he never heard us. I don't blame
him because he had a large pileup, and I must have been weak to him. All of a
sudden he disappeared, but a few minutes later I found him on a different
frequency in Liberty. Of course, he worked us right away. That was certainly
frustrating. Later, I heard KN4Y/GAD with a decent signal and worked him for
the sweep!
We are very thankful that FQP does not have a 10 minute rule for M/S stations.
That made the contest a lot more fun for us.
We hope to see all of you in the California QSO Party on October 4-5, 2003!
73...
-Dean - N6DE
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
|