WQ6X Wades Thru a Weird Radiosport Weekend

 

As radiosport weekends go, this one was weird; I thought the Weird Prefix Contest was LAST weekend - It Was.  On the menu was the EA RTTY contest, starting @12:00z and 3 QSO parties: MSQP, MOQP and LAQP; beginning at 1400z.  Don't these people know that I like to sleep in on Saturdays?

Unfortunately, from the beginning, my SF east bay location was riddled w/atmospheric noise from a handful of solar storms throughout the weekend.  As I write this on Monday morning, leftover effects from the storms have not yet subsided.

While it is true that I may have missed out on a number of Ssb QSO party stations, running Cw
only, I was disappointed by the low turnout on in-state stations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri (the Show Me state).  The EA RTTY contest didn't fare much better in Western North America; if I had been running from Europe or even New England, I would've encountered 100's of stations for the log, including some Russians having nothing to do with the mess over there.

Also noticeably missing were stations from Japan.  In previous years, many JA stations easily made it into the WQ6X log.  Unfortunately, propagation to Europe from my signal-vortex location in Concord is extremely lacking.  I was hoping for more USA and Canadian stations to pad the contest logs. 
Of course, as I always say every contest "Wait 'til next year!"

Now when it comes to the MOQP, I really can't say that the low turnout is surprising. 
The county activation map made it clear that only 49% of the counties would be activated. 
Contrast that w/California's CQP GiG where all 58 counties are activated every year.

At least Missouri gives us two different days to look for MOQP stations or call "CQ MO WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA".  Unfortunately, there were several non-Missouri stations calling "CQ MO" with no identification that they were NoT in MO until you called in.  For example, K0DME should
have signed K0DME/CO.  Conversely, WX8C should have signed WX8C/MGM, letting us
know he WAS in Missouri.  N0BSO should have signed N9BSO/STL for the same reason.

I queried all such stations, hoping they would "get the message" and ID properly. Not surprisingly of course, they didn't.  Then again K4BAI/GA, made it immediately clear that we was NoT in Missouri, saving EVERYONE a lot of time.

Of course, my "CQ MO WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA" calls were responded to by stations who OBVIOUSLY didn't get it.  I have written up this problem up before ([CLICK HERE] to read that).  Let's review this situation, shall we?  When I call "CQ MO WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA":

• Do you know what CQ MO means? 
  If NoT, then you should not call me.
  If you know that I am looking for MO and you are not in Missouri, then you should Not call me.
• If you DO know this is the Missouri QSO party
  If you don't know that WQ6X/6 and/or WQ6X/CA means I am not in Missouri, then you should NoT call me.
  If you DO know that WQ6X/6 and/or WQ6X/CA means I am NoT in Missouri, then, you should NoT call me.

It's REALLY that simple.  Am I MISSING something?
Even Albert Einstein understood the world of radio communication.

Similar to last years QSO parties, the MSQP and LAQP events were a large disappointment. 
What good is running a QSO party if there is very little in-state participation?  Additionally,
lumping CW and Digital station entries is either disingenuous, misguided, or BOTH.
Ending these QSO party events at 02:00z (7pm PDT) makes no sense at all. 
JUST as 80, 40 and even 160 begin to open to the Southeast, both QSO parties
are over - Bummer Dewd!

A major upside to the weekend was giving the Yaesu FT-2000 a thorough RTTY workout. 
The built-in IF and DSP filtering to the transceiver, largely obviates the need for external filtering
to effectively decode RTTY signals; the actually RTTY audio is taken from the last audio stage and sent directly to the RiGExpert unit (the interface to my Windoze 7 PC used for contest running).

The only thing this configuration is incapable of is Stereo-RTTY; then again, no matter the transceiver, the audio for the Stereo-RTTY method needs to be intercepted Before the RiGExpert unit receives its audio.

Despite all the political upheavals happening around dirtball Earth, it's nice to know that we can transform this "Mr. Toads Wile Ride" into useful emergency preparedness training exercises; which
is how I view radiosport contest events to begin with.

What about YOU?

DiD YOU engage in radiosport activities the 1st weekend of April?

If NoT, WHY Knot?

If SO, how DiD it all turn out?