Virginia QSO Party - 2022
Call: KF6NCX
Operator(s): KF6NCX
Station: KF6NCX
Class: SOAB/CWFixed HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40: 6 0 0
20: 5 0 0
15: 2 0 0
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 13 0 0 Mults = 12 Total Score = 324
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
This baker’s dozen qsos was hard fought for. I invested four hours in the
contest, and I don’t regret it — it was fun. And I had a thrilling moment at
the end. But VA operators were hard for me to find. I suspect my friend Dave,
KA6BIM, from Oregon, heard a lot more VA contesting ops with his mighty contest
station on a ridge. My all-purpose everyday antenna looks down on an ordinary
suburban lot. Supported by two maples and a liquidamber tree, it’s a 130-foot
end-fed wire that forms an inverted vee, 50 feet at the high point. I was
running 400 watts with my KPA500 amp, driven by a Kenwood TS-590SG.
I expected Saturday morning would be good, but I didn’t hear the Virginians.
And the afternoon wasn’t a lot better. I made one qso in the morning and
three in the afternoon. I tried to work phone as well as CW but even though I
searched for them, I only heard one phone operator, who had a major pileup going
on 20 meters Sunday afternoon. I decided not to spend time trying.
A slow contest doesn’t mean no fun. I got to hear a lot of stuff tuning up
and down the bands, as I searched for partiers: POTA stations, guys calling CQ
and several phone nets — I checked into one. Also worked two guys from
Germany and someone from Mexico — both were cw ops calling CQ. I was
surprised how open the bands were. There was dx on 10, 15 and 20. I heard a guy
in Costa Rica calling CQ on phone on 10 meters. I tried to call him but there
was a pileup and I was not getting through and did not want to spend the time to
go on trying.
I kept expecting to work host contesters on 10 and 15 since it seemed an easy
hop from VA to CA but I did not hear them. I took time for short qsos with a
couple of guys who were calling CQ. I got some practice as an out-of-state guy
calling CQ, also, but got no takers from VA although a couple of guys not in the
contest and not from VA called me. Oh, yeah, and I worked a special event
station in PA — the event commemorating the 150th anniversary of a famous
bridge.
The excitement came at the very end of the contest. I had decided to spend the
last hour just seeing if I could find any VA cw ops on 10, 15, 20, or 40. I
heard guys conversing (in Morse) on all those bands but no cw contesters. I
tried calling cq myself, to no avail. Finally, with about 20 minutes left in
the contest, I heard someone calling CQ VQP! Call sign was K4HB, not real loud
but workable, I thought.
He was working people, and when I got a chance I tried to call him, but
maddeningly, somebody started pounding his key over and over, making a
dum-dum-dum-dum-dum sound, drowning out K4HB. Really frustrating! Was he a
jammer? He seemed to send kind of rough cw, giving his call sign, but K4HB did
not call him. I wondered if he was mad because he was not being called.
Finally, he disappeared.
But then, a loud station called, QRL? I responded by sending, “Contest.”
And I heard someone else make a jamming sound: “dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit.”
But maddeningly, again, the guy ignored us or couldn’t hear us and started
calling CQ!
Time was running out so I tuned away and started calling CQ myself. With seven
or eight minutes left, I tuned back to K4HB. Blessedly, it was quiet around
him. I called him, but he didn’t respond at first. Then he heard me and got
part of my call and asked me, “Agn?” a few times. Still, he could not hear
me. He sent, “SRI.” So I gave up.
But not entirely. A couple of minutes later, although it seemed brash and maybe
rude (like I was wasting his time by calling again) I did call him again. He
started asking for repeats. He could get almost all of my KF6NCX but he was
sending K6NCX. I kept giving my call and he kept getting it wrong. The
pressure was mounting. Then he thought my call was KU6NCX or something similar.
He just could not seem to get my prefix right. Finally, I sent KF6, KF6, KF6,
and F F F F F F F F F F F F F, and after that he got it right. We worked with
just two minutes left in the contest! I was happy.
Thanks very much for the qsos, and I’ll look forward to next year’s event.
73,
Larry
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