[CQ-Contest] Fists Coast to Coast contest and wrap up
Paul Beringer
fistsc2c at yahoo.com
Fri Oct 17 22:16:34 EDT 2003
>From its roots in 1998 as the West Coast Triple with K7FFF, K6FFF and
WA7YYY, the Third Annual Coast-to-Coast FISTS Clubs QSO Party has expanded
to an amazing 56 clubs participating this year. In fact, some clubs got
their numbers just days before the event started. I received e-mails from
FISTS members telling me about unknown clubs who didn't know about the
event. Just a week before the event, David, K8III e-mailed to say that W1AW
was a club. Two hours before the start, I got an e-mail from the Redmond Top
Key Contest club asking me to get a club number! Well, even I can't move
that fast.
Since I can't put up antennas here at our condo anymore, Casey Bahr, KS7J
invited my wife and I to spend the weekend at his place to work the contest.
His lovely wife Tamara and their two children were very gracious hosts and
we felt very welcome there. Perhaps we will be able to return the favor in
the future.
By all accounts, the event was a bang up success. We started out right on
time and were on the air for most of the time. The winner in the individual
category was Bill K8FLY who outdistanced the individual FISTS members with
1911 points.
Some of Bill’s comments, “Well talk about exciting news! I knew I did well,
but sure didn’t ever expect to possibly get that lucky! I had a total of 55
QSOs, a few rag chews along the way from some newer members as well as a few
from fellow FISTS members that I’ve gotten to know over the years. I have
always been a rag chewer first then a FISTS member. I sure can’t say enough
thanks for all the clubs that took the time to participate ....... what a
growing group we are!”
One club that must have been awake all night was W4FCR, the FISTS QSL Bureau
Club. Stan and his gang slammed dunked the winning club score with 41 clubs
worked and 18 additional QSOs on different bands for a total of 2378. Stan,
K4UK, wrote some comments on behalf of the three operators, himself, Riley,
K4ORD and Bill, W4BOT.
Here are some of Stan’s comments edited for brevity. “We split up the bands
so that (we) operated mainly 20 Meters and
.40 Meters.
..around 1430
UTC
.after many (15M) CQ's (Stan) was finally answered by Arve, SM6FFG in
Vallda, Sweden. Arve is not a member of FISTS but they had an enjoyable 30
minute rag chew. Then Stan called Bill, W4BOT and told him 15 Meters was
open. He also sent an e-mail off to Geo, G3ZQS suggesting that he get
GX0IPX on the air on 15 Meters. So, then by golly at 1829 UTC (Bill) was
"thrilled" to get FISTS # 1 from Geo at GX0IPX. And later Fred, G4HWK #6470
at 1847 UTC. By far the best bands were 40 and 20 Meters. We were
disappointed that there was not much activity on 80 Meters. However the
opening of 15 Meters provided some real fun for Bill, who is new to
"contesting" and he told me it was one of the biggest thrills he has had in
his 50 years of ham radio.”
Geo, who operated #1 club station GX0IPX, commented that conditions were
very poor on 15 meters. “In fact, the wheels came off after about 30 minutes
and by that time, 20m was nbg due to the noise level.” I’ll leave it to your
imagination what “nbg” really means! Hi hi
Three clubs participated from “down under”. ZL6FF, VK2FDU and VK4RC. Judging
by what I saw in the smattering of logs I received, propagation conditions
were not very conducive to contacts either with Europe or New Zealand and
Australia. But I will say many thanks for the hard earned contacts that they
provided. Canada was represented by a few clubs most notably VA7TRS operated
by John, VE7NI. John had 78 contacts with participants this year. Many
thanks to the Canada clubs.
Robin Faulkner, the man behind the fabulous certificates, has done a
wonderful service for the Coast-to-Coast event. The certificates are better
than any other I have seen. They are printed on a cloth-based paper and the
printing really stands out. Almost a 3D effect.
With more than nearly 80 scores entered in the database, I'd say that C2C
2003 was an unqualified success with lots of activity both slow and fast. It
was interesting listening to the ragchews that would occasionally develop
between the clubs and members. I heard one member mention that this was the
first contest he'd entered and was having a blast. Darron Sanchez, WA5TCZ
was one of those who are just getting started. His score of 928 was very
commendable for a beginner.
I look forward to next year's event as many of you do. I personally will be
getting two more clubs registered and I hope that the trend continues. The
more the merrier!
73
Paul Beringer NG7Z
Chairman C2C ‘03
Here are the scores that are current as of October 17th.
Individual station scores
Call Fist# Score
K8FLY 3032 1911
W8III 5058 1628
WA9PWP 2153 1435
N0BZM 5149 1400
WB0PYF 7986 1394
W4WDA 9372 1240
K9PL 6753 1140
NG7Z 5368 1073
K4UK 2934 990
KA1OX 2489 960
WD9EMF 9550 960
K8NVR 7957 957
WA5TCZ 9441 928
W5TA 7889 858
WB6QQR 8023 725
N3JV 9365 676
K0CPX 8558 675
KD5MDO 9488 675
KO1U N/A 675
W0UFO 3823 650
KH6HHS 9579 648
W9YQ 2765 648
WB4JJJ 2433 625
N3ZPO 8836 575
KD5MJJ 8180 529
K4ORD 4272 484
K7KJ 8686 420
KS4TD 4760 399
KC4TVN 870 360
KS0M 3067 342
K1KID 7882 340
WA2VQV 3179 324
N5EBD 9465 320
KW3F 10140 300
KS7J 3648 272
AA2WN 8716 261
K8VFR 5602 256
N4RE 8806 255
N1NGM 1273 238
K7ZYV 3426 208
K3NY 3549 195
N7EIE 9925 143
K6RCZ 9599 121
WA9PDS 6790 121
N1WH 9447 110
KB9P 8437 36
N1SB 7660 36
WB9AUJ 3300 36
KB4BS 9784 16
W4BOT 5674 9
Club scores
Call Fists# Score
W4FCR 7007 2378
K5FFF 9750 1950
W4MVZ 7600 1209
W2ZOJ 7900 1140
W4FFF 9700 1131
K7FFF 4400 1044
AC9BP 10050 1024
W8EOC 10250 1020
VA7TRS 9400 986
WS9CAN 9550 960
W9FFF 6900 850
W8NCK 8200 837
K8EY 3400 754
W4GGM 5700 725
KD5ZBF 10375 675
W2LZ 9100 546
W4UOT 10300 484
K5TCC 7400 400
W6RO 9350 400
W4HFH 2963 352
KC7EQW 8675 320
W7PXL 8800 300
KC8VC 10150 272
NJ2BB 9262 261
W2MO 8250 172
W4GAC 7875 144
W7TU 9475 143
W1AW 10200 100
W3GR 9275 72
NK3ST 6600 36
VK4RC 9066 16
GX0IPX 1 9
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