In a message dated 5/30/99 11:19:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
DougKR2Q@aol.com writes:
> AHA! Another candidate for QRP! Take it from me, you will have a tough
time
>
> making a good score if you only "RUN" while QRP.
Very interesting comments, Doug,
When I moved 2 years ago the expectations of being able to put up a new tower
and beam were pretty much out of the question. I was no longer able to climb
towers (15 years) and it was to be a real letdown loosing a KW and TH6DXX
which did real well for me. I had a much above average signal because of the
towers location and beam 200 feet above a major creek into the ocean.
My first move was to operate mobile and besides IOTA numbers, giving out US
Islands contacts from the 7 or 8 qualifiers within 20 minutes of the home QTH.
What contesting did for me was a new thrill and drive by going QRP.
I had for a few years tried giving 160 contest QRP CW contacts and found many
east of the Mississippi workable.
Running only an AP8-A vertical I embarked on my first QRP SS 3 years ago.
Strange as it would become, my first Division Plaque ever. One thrill was
busting a 7-land station for I think Montana as he spoke with a buddy
comparing notes and not hearing much east coast yet. His voice at the Q is
something that stuck.
Year number 2 from the new QTH was still only with the vertical. Again a nice
event. There were 3 main QRP entries in the Division, all within 1,000 points
of each other. I was 3rd, but equalled the leaders mults and was only 7 Q's
behind. Talk about being competitive and looking towards a level field. The
closeness of the 3 participants really was impressive.
B class stations all working sweeps just comes down to your number of Q's and
that grows merely by how big a signal you have. The world will eventually
come to you.
I'm just waiting to see the ARRL web page next week likely for the SSB
results in the last SS. With July issues arriving about the 15th of the
month here I would expect to maybe see results posted soon. I'm sure the copy
was destined for the printer for this weekend.
As for S&P with QRP, my first year it took 35 minutes with various other
calls made to nail KR2Q for just the CT section. Frustrating ? Try looking
at a 40 over signal and just not be able to get through for the mult. At
least this year it was just one call. All the close stuff on 80 I didn't
work easily in the past was a piece of cake this year.
The only section heard PAC but not worked was a KH6 S&P himself on 80
The biggest impact to now 3 years of QRP in the SS is the study and
observation of propagation and what can be done if one hits the righ band for
the propagation vs location. Over the 3 years with the ground mounted
vertical I had 75, 77, 76 mults respecitively in the Phone SS.
73, Bob, W2CE
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