Ohio QSO Party
Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Jefferson Co
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 55 55
40: 119 151
20: 62 13
15: 5
10:
--------------------
Total: 241 219 CW Mults = 79 Ph Mults = 91 Total Score = 119,170
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
Here in Ohio, I think across the board the weather was great. No storms within
the state that I knew of. Those along the East Coast were not so fortunate - I
hope you all managed to keep safe!
Quick thought -- Near the end I heard a lot of high numbers. I have a feeling
some county records will have been broken this year!
I replaced my 80m doublet a few weeks ago with an Alpha Delta DX-LB+ and was
curious to see how it performed. It seemed to do equally well on 80m and much
better on 40m. And, now I'm able to actually work any part of 80/40m. I did
have problems with RFI taking out my CW interface and crashing N1MM. As a
stopgap I relocated the interface and its wires and that seemed to help. When
I finally got around to 80m SSB, the second station I worked, KW8N-bob, informed
me that I had RF getting into my audio. A big thanks to him for kindly
bringing that to my attention early on. I should have been monitorng my audio
-- it was indeed horrendous. As another stopgap, I switched from the Heil
headset and handswitch to the stock microphone and then checked back in with
KW8N. He reported things were sounding good. [Bob - thank you for letting me
know early on - Lesser people would have simply ignored my horrible audio
leaving me to wonder why nobody was answering]. So I was on my way finally
being able to work 80m SSB. Ever since I've had this station, various
difficulties had prohibited me from working 80m SSB. Although there was less
activity on 80m, it was productive.
As usual, I really never know what band to start on, or when to switch from one
band to another. After some good advice on the reflector from K8MR, I decided
I'd try to be on 20/15 if i could to provide contacts for the folks on the left
coast as well as DX. 15m was a bust for the most part, but I did manage to
work a handful of stations. I did find some stations on 20m CW, but very few
on SSB. I was surprised to hear a DX call in on multiple occasions, most
frequently DL2HBX but quite a few others as well, and so I was glad I was there
to be heard and grateful for the Qs.
For the first time in a contest, SSB was the bread and butter for me. 40m SSB
was amazing. I had a blast, and there were many times when I just couldn't
keep up with all of the stations calling in. It was great, except for the
fact that I didn't have N1MM set up with my audio to queue up and I had to
juggle the keyboard and microphone constantly. It really was a great time.
Sure, CW will garner more points [if the stations are there to work], but SSB
was yielding lots of Qs and I had the advantages of actually saying hi to some
of the folks that I had worked many times only on CW.
Seemed to me 80m had a lot less activity this year. Could have just been me.
Maybe I just wasn't hearing as much on the new wire, I really couldn't tell.
I'm thinking everyone was just on 40m for longer periods of time.
I remember K5KG calling me on CW and then sending "SSB?". He had to repeat
that so many times. I thought he was sending SS6 and I couldn't figure out
why. Eventually the light bulb went on and I said yes. George gave a freq
to QSY to and I met him there. He then explained to me that I'd probably be
hearing others ask for a QSY as well. I'd never had a station ask me to QSY
before so it caught me off guard. I was asked to QSY a few times after that,
most notably when OM2VL asked me to QSY from CW to SSB on 40m. That was fun,
I was glad we were able to make the second contact.
I didn't chase the mobiles nearly as much this year, and my score certainly
reflects that with quite a number of missing counties in my log. But, they
were out there to be worked. As it turns out, I heard at least 7 counties on
the air at times when they were S&Ping, but I never had an actual opportunity
to work them. Had I realized then that the callsigns represented counties I
needed, I'd have went after them. Oh well, I was having lotsa fun.
Thanks to many... Kenny, K2KW, for again spearheading the promotion of the
OhQP; the Ohio stations, who really stepped up to the plate to put counties on
the air; the abundance of out-of-state participation -- ya gotta have that!;
the DX stations who joined us for the party, and the half dozen or so mobiles,
aero-mobiles, and rovers for traveling far and wide [in some cases, from
outside Ohio] to make counties available.
Oh yeah -- Thanks to the guys who were spotting us Ohio stations, especially
K5KG -- a sudden influx of stations answering one's CQ is a great pick-me-up.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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