[CQ-Contest] NAQP CW - Value of 2 Radios

[bogus at does.not.exist.com]

On Tuesday, August 05, 1997 10:56 AM, N6ZZ at aol.com wrote:
>I'd be interested in a bit of information from the rest of you that appear to
>be in the top ten in last weekend's CW NAQP.  In addition to Jeff, that would
>(currently) include:  K3MM, N4ZZ, NM5M, AA3B, K4FXN, N4AF, K0EJ, K6LL and
>K3PH.  

Phil, 
I am answering/responding/interjecting as one who was intending to 
go 2 radio, but let circumstances overtake him during the week and 
and ended up going 1 radio.  I am also speaking from the standpoint 
of being a QRP station, so my operating techniques are probably 
vastly different than those operating 'full' NAQP power.

My questions are:
>
>  1.  Did you use two radios in a somewhat efficient manner?  (Such as CQing
>on one band while listening on another)
>
>If the answer to #1 is yes:
>
Yes.  I would have.  I was operating QRP, so my QSX times were
probably longer than those for the big guns.  I noted many places
in my log (during and after the contest) where I went for extended
periods of time (couple of minutes) between QSO's.  Those times
I was S&P'ing, looking for someone new to work, I could have been
calling CQ on another band and maybe making the odd QSO here
and there that way.  

>  2.  How many additional QSOs do you think you got by using two radios, as
>compared to what you would have gotten had you been using only one radio?
>
Probably 30 or 40.  Seems high (~10 percent of my final QSO count),
but then, there were lots of opportunities to be calling CQ while either
waiting for a QSO to finish or looking for a new station to work.

>  3.  How many additional multipliers do you think you got by using two
>radios, as compared to what you would have gotten had you been using only one
>radio?
>
Half dozen or more?  Lots of mults were S&P'ing.  I played leap-frog
with a bunch of them by calling CQ just above their QSO QRG in 
hopes they were tuning that direction and would hear and call me. 
In a few cases it worked.  In more, it did not. 
 
But, I think having the second radio augmenting the on-air presence
cannot hurt.

73,

Dale Martin, KG5U
kg5u at hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u



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