For the 3rd contest weekend in October, the goal was to make it ALL-QRP, All-of-the-Time.
Overall, that goal WAS met - having super-gain yagi stacks certainly compensates for the voluntary reduction in output power.
This weekend brought us a jumble of radiosport events - 3 on Saturday and one on Sunday.
- [X] - NYQP New York QSO Party - Mixed Mode
- [X] - SP-160 - Stew Perry 160 Cw GiG
- [X] - WaG - Worked All Germany - Mixed Mode
- [X] - ILQP Illinois QSO Party - Mixed Mode
The BiG problem was horrible Space-Wx on Saturday evening, extending into Sunday.
The New York QSO Party seemed to have plenty of stations on CW (altho less so on Ssb).
My biggest BEEF w/NYQP is the 02:00z ending time. On the Left Coast, we're JUST getting propagation to New York on 40 (later on 80) and they shut the QSO Party down - that SUX.
This is what I had to say about the NYQP QSO Party:
This weekend was ab out running EVERYTHING QRP from the WA6TQT Super Station.That said, while I always hope for many more participants in their own state QSO parties,
there were plenty of NY stations. The problem is: ending your QSO party occurs
JUST as the lower band(s) are opening to the NY area. Gives us just TWO MORE
HOURS and I will be happy. I ran Anza STN-2 using a 40-meter thru 10-meter
stacked arrays, fix-pointed 60-degrees azimuth.
For the Stew Perry 160 Contest, I had this to say:
This weekend was about running EVERYTHING QRP from the WA6TQT Super Station.For SP-160, I ran Anza STN-2 into a crippled 160-meter horizonal tri-square (the S-E leg
is weirded out). Sometimes pointing the antenna "WEST" gave better signals East than
pointing it "NE", which seemed to work more "SE" - W-E-I-R-D.
Unfortunately, a handful of solar disturbances made the band HORRENDOUSLY Noisy.
Running QRP, made it even tricker: I could HEAR W2/W3 (but nothing in between), while
they couldn't hear my calls (or even the Left Coast) at all.
Because the Illinois QSP Party came and went so quickly, there wasn't much to say,
except that I ran this GiG from the Ramona remote station, not the Anza location.:
It wasn't until I went to file the other weekend 3830 Scores that
the ILQP was noticed on the list. Anza STN-2 was already shut down,
directing my attention to the Ramona remote - just enough to catch the ending.
The BiG "HiT" of the weekend was of course, WaG - Worked All Germany:
This weekend was about running EVERYTHING QRP from the WA6TQT Super Station.I ran Anza STN-2 using a 40-meter thru 10-meter stacked yagi arrays, fix-pointed
33-degrees azimuth pointing more-or-less right at Germany. Running QRP, QSOs
were made with nearly 75% of the stations called. Near the end, when WQ6X
called CQ, it was AWEsome to have them come to me for about 40-minutes.
Unfortunately, a handful of solar disturbances put an end to the fun.
LooK for write-ups on this and other GiGs at: http://WQ6X.Blogspot.com
DiD YOU work any of the above radiosport events?
Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?