Ohio QSO Party
Call: K8MAD
Operator(s): K8CC, K9TM, WD8S
Station: K9TM
Class: M/M HP
QTH: LUCA
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 164 129
40: 211 302
20: 98 570
15: 0 0
10: 0 0
--------------------
Total: 473 1001 CW Mults = 101 Ph Mults = 111 Total Score = 412,764
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
Ah yes, another weekend of low-sunspot domestic contesting. While condx didn't
really cooperate, it was still a fun weekend.
The mobiles garner all of the attention as they travel from county to county,
but our group gets our kicks from putting a good station on the air with the
legal limit from as many rigs as possible so that everybody gets a shot at
getting us as a multiplier.
The operation was under the MRRC club call K8MAD from K9TM's QTH in Sylvania,
OH (suburban Toledo, and literally within shouting distance of Michigan :-)).
We set up three rigs, but only had 2-2/3 operators. Station owner K9TM had
some unavoidable appointments early Saturday afternoon, so K8CC (40M) and WD8S
(20M) held down the fort until he arrived back around 20Z, at which time he put
the 80/75 station on the air. THe setup was as follows:
80/75 FT-1000MkV, MLA-2500, inv-vee @ 60'
40 FT-1000MP, Titan, inv-veee @ 40', 2L @ 65'
20 FT-1000D, Alpha 87a, 5L @ 65'
Although we tried, we worked nobody on 15 or 10.
40M was excellent for the first two hours, which is when most of our in-state
QSOs were worked on that band. After that, the band went long, in-state
signals got weak and the mobile signals essentially disappeared. After that it
was grind it out as best we could.
20M was a big surprise. SSB was a bottomless pit of QSOs from coast to coast.
It seemed that every time Mike would go there and start calling CQ, people would
answer. He even worked 47 stations on 20 SSB in the last hour of the contest,
which is 11:00-12:00 PM local time. CW, OTOH was very disappointing. The
almost 6:1 ratio between SSB and CW QSO counts was neither intentional nor
accidental. After working the resulars in several bursts during the 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th hours, the rate got very poor. This was very clear in the mults we
worked; we got all 50 states on SSB, but only 45 on CW, the margin being Mike's
success on SSB.
As mentioned earlier, K9TM got back during the 20Z hour, and put the 80/75
station on the air shortly thereafter. When the QRN allows, 80/75 is a great
band for working in-state QSOs in OhQP. However this year the band was very
noisy as there were several moderate thunderstorms in the area which perhaps
kept people off the band and slowed the rate. However, we were able to work a
number of mobiles on 80/75. One interesting statistic is that we worked 55 new
mults in the last half of the contest (6 hours) and 47 of those mults came from
80/75.
We last did this contest in 2003 as K8O from this same QTH with essentially the
same setup, which the the OhQP in-state multi-op record at 429,475. If you
deduct the 78 QSOs we made that year on 15M (when spots were better and we had
another op to put on the band), the totals between 2003 and 2006 are only four
QSOs apart, but we had seven more mults this time.
So in conclusion, while the ionosphere didn't give us the in-state short skip
enjoyed in 2005, it only goes to show that even in low sunspot years this
contest is a lot of fun. Look for us to be back!
73,
Dave, K8CC
Tim, K9TM
Mike, WD8S
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|