Minnesota QSO Party
Call: AE0EE
Operator(s): AE0EE
Station: AE0EE
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: LES
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Band CW-RTTY Qs Ph Qs
-------------------------
160:
80: 27 11
40: 75 43
20: 77 62
15: 21 17
10: 2
-------------------------
Total: 202 133 Mults = 92 Total Score = 61,640
Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn
Comments:
100 W, dipoles at 20-30'. No voice/memory keying, all CW on a Vibroplex bug.
That was quite a rush! Activity was high, and propagation was pretty good.
Last year, my first year as an in-state participant, I frequently checked in on
the mobiles in an attempt to get lots of counties. The county-hunting thing
worked, but the rates suffered, and I felt I wasn't helping to do much to
promote the QSO party by making QSOs with other in-state folks on a band that
only worked regionally.
This year, I decided to go for an alternate strategy. I would run on the
highest band where it makes any sense to do so, up until the last two hours.
Then just before the low bands open, I would shift into run mode on 40, 80, and
even 160 m. Next year I'll even write down the 160 m frequencies *before*
heading to the cabin so I might make QSOs there.
Anyway, the strategy worked. Even at the start, 15 m was open, and I worked
OM2VL quickly. Unfortunately, most of Europe wasn't trying to get Le Sueur
county (or any others, as far as I could tell), so I had to head down to 20 m
to keep the rate up. I ran on those two bands (more 20 than 15) through the
morning, then while making lunch switched to search-and-pounce on 40 m to catch
some of the rovers. I learned in the ARRL RTTY contest that one ought not be
running while pots are on the stove. During lunch, I joined the 10 m action,
such as it was. Not much was happening, so I switched antennas and went back
to my previously scheduled 15/20 m routine.
Unlike some counties, there are not many stations on from Le Sueur county. The
mobile activity page suggested that no rovers would be coming through, so I
decided that I needed to have at least some balance between SSB and CW to give
the phone-only ops a fair chance at it. It was definitely a bit different to
run the SSB pileups, and good practice for the upcoming VK0EK DXpedition to
Heard Island.
The late-afternoon dive to the low bands went very well. Since most of the
Minnesota stations hadn't worked me yet, I knew I could count on a lot of
action and it materialized. When one run would dry up, I'd switch bands or
modes and keep going, picking off a new multiplier or two while I searched for
an open frequency.
The last hour was the best for rate, and hours 1, 3, and 4 were all pretty slow
up on the high bands. Overall I managed to work 44 states, 5 provinces, and 43
counties (of 87). Given that I paid very, very little attention to the rovers,
I was pretty pleased by the in-state numbers. While the rates on the high bands
were low, I achieved the goal of putting some activity up there to broaden
participation.
Comparison with last year:
Up: QSOs, SSB, 20 m
Down: Mults, 160 m, score
Unchanged: Not called during contest by a top-10 most-wanted DXCC entity
This year I managed (through more running) to get more QSOs in the log, but as
expected, paid significantly in multipliers. For a raw score, the difference
is actually quite small: 8 QSOs or ~2 multipliers more this year would have
exceeded last year's mark. Also, while last year K1N did not call me during
the contest from Navassa, this year VP8SGI on South Georgia missed me (hi hi).
I'm looking forward to next year's MNQP already!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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