[3830] FlQP VE4VT SOABMixed LP

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                    Florida QSO Party

Call: VE4VT
Operator(s): VE4VT
Station: VE4VT

Class: SOABMixed LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
   40:   28      7
   20:  263     51
   15:   36     20
   10:    0      0
--------------------
Total:  327     78  CW Mults = 67  Ph Mults = 30  Total Score = 142,008

Club: 

Comments:

As always this QSO party is a blast. The organizers and mobiles make this
contest the premier QSO party. Not enough can be said about the mobiles and the
effort they put in.

As if listening to CW for 20 hours isn't bad enough, they do it while sitting
in a moving vehicle contending with endless pile ups, major QRN I am sure and
frequent deep fades. With the price of gas now, they all deserve our thanks and
appreciation!

The propagation for this contest was a little tougher this year compared to the
last several I found. With lower solar activity the last 5 years or so, the MUF
between VE4 and Florida never really climbed much above 20m during the
contests. This year it went above 10m and the result was 20m levels dropped
through the floor during mid day here. This mean that during sunrise, sunset
times, the signals from Florida were booming, Around 1800z,  they almost
vanished. The upside, was 15m produced the booming signals. I wish all the
Florida would have focused on 15m rather than 20.

I managed the sweep on CW but it was late Sunday afternoon (2040z) by N5WR. WAG
was the last one needed and I had missed it twice earlier in the day when I got
stuck in pileups and the op changed counties on me before I made it through. I
started Sunday needing 7 counties and thought LIB would be the tough one. AS is
often the case, I ended up working several of them.

Speaking of pileups, Sunday afternoon they were crazy on the mobiles
frequencies. I don't know how many times VE9AA, VE3KP, VE3RZ and all the other
VE3's would show up on frequency and one or two calls later they would get
through and I was still left trying. I felt so "knee high" next to these big
guys. I have to give credit again to the mobile ops, many of them were barely
detectable during mid day times but somehow the managed to pull me out of the
noise.

This year I decided to run low power figuring 6 dB less should not be that big
of a deal. I was wrong, I am sure it would have helped and I am sure that many
of the mobiles would have appreciated that little extra help in pulling me out
of the noise. 

With the spectrum scope on the 7700, it was trivial to spot the big signals on
15m so it took little time to scan for activity up there. repeated the same
patter many times. Sweep between 14.04 and 14.05 twice, then sweep 20m phone
and then quickly 15m and repeat. For variety extend the 20m sweep looking for
base ops outside the mobile window.

Thanks again!

Ed


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