Vermont QSO Party - 2023
Call: KK1L
Operator(s): KK1L
Station: KK1L
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 24.75
OpMode: 2BSIQ
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160: 3 5 11
80: 28 88 24
40: 81 269 88
20: 190 396 185
15: 53 28 34
10: 11 26 48
6: 46
2: 99
UHF:
----------------------------
Total: 366 802 535 CW Mults = 56 Ph Mults = 67 Dig Mults = 87 Total
Score = 823,217
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Note: Digital contacts allowed on WARC in this QSO Party.
Above 6m=17m, 2m=24m. I also treated FT4 and FT8 as unique modes, which might
not be correct. If all are digital, then there will be some duplicates.
Recently been getting more active in the Vermont QSO Party. There are a bunch of
folks who comment that Vermont is not very well represented during its party. We
do what we can to whip up the troops so to speak, but we are a small state with
not much over 600k folks in it...not gonna have the QSO volume of an FQP, CQP,
or TQP. That being said...nice job from the Minnesota hams for getting out and
getting on as well.
• 5.5hrs from 19:00L Friday
• 14hrs from 07:50L ‘til 21:50L Saturday with 30 min for dinner
• 5.75hrs from after Sunday Mass 13:15L until the end
My plan was to be as active on each of the HF modes as I could in the time I had
to both maximize the opportunity for others to work VT and as well to maximize
the score. I worked to get my two radio setup functioning again running low
power. A K3s and a KX2 driving a Hardrock-50 50W amp. I am not fully capable of
working any band on both radios. Currently I have a single feed tribander,
2el40m, and single feed 80m/160m Inv-V. The 40m loads up on 17m and 24m, but
without bandpass filters I am limited which bands interfere with each other. I
had to play that by ear this weekend. This was most important on FTx where I
could run a true automated 2BSIQ. I found that 20m or 10m could coexist with 17m
or 24m.
I started off right on time at 00Z on 40m near the announced “activity time”
freq on 40m unfortunately chosen for 7.200. With Zippy and his pinhead friends
there we scattered about the band. The first hour put 137 phone Qs in the log
between 40m and 20m. I bopped around between phone, CW and Digi. By the time I
stopped at 0530Z I had 468Qs logged.
I started slowly Saturday morning at 1250Z 20m phone, and quickly decided to try
FTx. Great choice! I had a great run working 332 stations in 3hrs on FT4 with
the first hour at a solid 130hr … WHAT!?! I actually hung out a bit long with
the last 30mins at “only” 40 QSOs. The rest of Saturday was not awesome
bouncing around the modes until 2030Z. Then 20m blew up…200Qs in 1hr10min.
There were a few fits and spurts of short high rate, but just kinda steady until
I quit for the night just before 2145L/0245Z with 1476Qs logged.
I knew Sunday I would be operating much less. Sunday Mass is a priority and my
daughter and grandkids were here for the weekend. I had not spent much time
Saturday with them, so did not get back on the air until after 1PM. Sunday was
definitely NOT Saturday (but I did miss the morning). I wanted to focus on CW
today. I am not awesome with Morse, but not terrible. I am enjoying it more and
more. A contest like this is a good one since the piles are not THAT large.
Typing fast and accurately matters more with CW…fat fingers and mild dyslexia
and calls like WVRJTK go out instead of W4JTK (made up example). My Morse goes
from ears to fingers THEN brain, so F5 is pressed before I correct the typing
and suffer a flurry of folks calling because I was slow to the gate. Anyway that
is more a comment than an excuse. Practice, practice, practice. I felt the best
I have ever felt running CW. All y’all might not agree with that though if you
were on the other side of the QSO :)
In the last few hours my K3s (new to me) developed the “ERR 12V” issue. Well
known as a resistive power connection most likely because this older S/N does
not have the gold contact pins. I ended up moving the KX2 to primary with the
max of 60W from the Hardrock-50 solid state amp (which worked like a CHAMP even
with the 15s/15s on/off cycle on FT4 for three hours…reached 60C though). I
also had some weird issue where the KX2 would stick in TX mode when I was dual
CQing on CW. Not sure what that was. I did not take the time to diagnose it much
at all.
Bottom line by the end of Sunday I had added a meager 271Qs including dupes!
Like I said Sunday was definitely not Saturday. Thanks for stopping by Vermont
this weekend. We were happy to have you and hope we made you feel welcomed to
the first QSO party of the year. Oh and thanks to those who might have joined me
as I recited the 6PM Angelus Saturday and Sunday...a pause for the cause so to
speak.
Special shout out to my top visitors (Qs assume unique FT4&FT8)..
• 14Qs(!) NX3A (missed 15m)
• 10Qs KK4BZ (no CW)
• 9Qs W9IZ
• 9Qs NF3R
• 8Qs AA1SU (no DIG)
• 7Qs WB9HFK (no DIG)
• 7Qs N8II (no DIG)
73 es God Bless de KK1L, Ron <><
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