[3830] AlQP NV4B SOMixed LP

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                    Alabama QSO Party

Call: NV4B
Operator(s): NV4B
Station: NV4B

Class: SOMixed LP
QTH: FRNK
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:            
   80:   42       
   40:  114     93
   20:   85    107
   15:   11     16
   10:           3
--------------------
Total:  252    219  CW Mults = 43  Ph Mults = 45  Total Score = 63,624

Club: Alabama Contest Group

Comments:

Thanks to all for another great AQP.  It was great to meet old friends on the
air and make new ones yesterday.  The great thing about QSO parties is the
relaxed atmosphere.  I really enjoyed the brief chats I had with several
folks.

Band conditions were all over the road -- 20m started out in rare form with
practically no skip zone.  No doubt the strong sporadic-E on the higher bands
was helping make life interesting on 20m.  I started out on 20m phone at a good
rate and didn't migrate higher until the opening had slacked off quite a bit and
never could get a rate on 15 or 10.

Then, somebody flipped the switch around 2000Z.  20 all but died, so I spent
some time on 40 before coming back and making a nice string of CW contacts on
20.  After that rate dried up, I never came back to 20, which apparently, from
looking at K4AB's comments on his AQP-record-setting run, was a mistake.

Like K4AB, I noticed that my phone rates were quite a bit higher than CW this
year, which is normally not the case in the AQP.  CW rates were still decent,
but not quite what they were in years past.  My best rate of the contest was on
40m phone at 2300Z.

One thing that struck me this year was the number of new hams, as indicated by
callsign prefixes, who participated and did a FANTASTIC job of operating!  This
was extremely encouraging.  At least one of the stations that was operating CW
-- from a scarce state at that -- was a Technician-class operator licensed post
code-test!

If you read W4AN(W1BO)'s summary, you saw an allusion to The Bet.  Jeremy bet
me a Coke at the 2012 BirmingHAMfest that he could beat me in the SOLP Mixed
category this year.  It looks like Jeremy fell a bit short, but the two of us,
fueled by our friendly competition, put up almost 100,000 points, which I think
is pretty cool.  The vertical he mentioned is actually a 10m vertical, and I
might have used it for a handful of the 15m QSOs.  The rest was G5RV all the
way!

Thanks as always to KC4HW and the Alabama Contest Group for making the AQP a
can't-miss, premier state QSO party.  It never fails to amaze me how far the
contest has come since I sponsored it in the late 90's, a period of AQP history
best forgotten!

And I, for one, welcome our new K4AB overlord.


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