Georgia QSO Party
AD1C -- Massachusetts
Single-op, low-power, all-band, unassisted
80: 2
40: 19
20: 102
15: 19
10: 7
TOTAL: 149 QSOs x 2 x 89 counties = 26,522 Final Score
10.5 hours of operation
ICOM 756pro, G5RV dipole @ 35 feet, HyGain AV-640 vertical, DX4WIN for
logging
Soapbox:
I got bitten by the county hunter bug last October, and have tried to
make an effort to work the state QSO parties where I knew several
mobiles would be active. K5OT sent me the list of mobiles to be
running in the GA QSO Party and this figured to be a good one. But I
wasn't sure how much time I'd be able to put into it. In the end, I
operated about 10 hours.
Before the contest, I went through my log and highlighted my K5OT
mobile list with the counties I need. In the past, I have tried to do
"too much" when the contest got slow -- checking the CW and SSB mobile
county hunter frequencies, DX spots, etc. I'm always wondering what I
was missing. One state QSO party (maybe WI) gave me a real headache by
the time it was over. Past experience has shown that 95-99% of the
mobile activity is CW-only, so I decided to just work CW and blow off
phone. The few times I checked 20m and 15m, I never heard a single GA
station calling CQ on phone, though I did hear someone pass K5OT/M to
SSB a few times. I just couldn't be bothered. I turned off W/K spots
before the contest, but after turning them back on after, there weren't
too many spotted.
Activity by the mobiles was better on Saturday than Sunday - I made
only one contact with K4PK/M on Sunday, but about 1/2 dozen on
Saturday. Sunday was fun as I started passing GA stations from 20m to
15m, and even passed a few to 10m with excellent signals! The band was
open, just nobody was home. I tried to spot them in the hope that it
would drum up some activity. I don't think it did. W3DYA/M was the
only mobile to try to pass ME and I worked Norm on several different
bands that way. He was the ONLY mobile I worked on 10m. Thanks, Norm!
I needed over 60 GA counties at the beginning of the contest. I was
fortunate to work about 33 of the ones I needed. Here is the breakdown
by mobile station:
AF4QB/M 12 QSOs
K4PK/M 8 QSOs
K5OT/M 15 QSOs
KN4Y/M 20 QSOs
NJ4U/M 26 QSOs
W3DYA/M 26 QSOs
K4BAI and K2UFT were the only 5-banders. I heard one mobile weakly on
80m but forgot who it was.
Also picked up my 500th county for the YEAR all-CW.
Thanks for all the activity, and I'm sure I'll be back next year,
finishing up the ones I still need.
73 - Jim AD1C
--
Jim Reisert AD1C, 7 Charlemont Court, North Chelmsford, MA 01863
USA +978-251-9933, <jjreisert@alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.com
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