WQ6X Reminices about Cinco-de-Contest

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1st weekend in May brings us what I call Cinco-de-Contest - 4 State QSO Parties, along
with  the Italian ARI contest.  This year, the weirdness of it all created a contest carrier-wave moving through the entire month of May, culminating in the Weird Prefix contest - the weirdest of the weird.

For 2023, I made the decision to sponsor a 1st-place plaque for the 7QP QSO Party (I ended up sponsoring 2).    In exchange, my goal was to win another 7QP mixed-mode plaque, but this time
for a QRP operation.  In preparation, I combed the 7QP website to get a feel for what I will be up against running QRP.

Other than running shifts for the NX6T high power operation, for this 5-GiG weekend, the watchword was: QRP.  The 7QP, DEQP & NEQP GiGs were run QRP for 2023.  The INQP does not possess
a QRP category, inducing me to crank the power to 95-watts when working W9's.  Because the Dx signal levels were so poor, I also chose to run the ARI GiG at the 95 watt level.

Running N1MM+ as the logging software, one contest entry (IN7QPNE) allows logging all four QSO parties, producing a combined CABRILLO-format file which is submitted 4-times, to each of the QSO party log submissions.  Each of the 4 contest log adjudicating programs ignore QSOs that are NoT related to their own QSO Party.  Additionally, there is a web-based APP which can input your Cabrillo file to produce a score report for the 4 QSO parties.  This allowed me to post the individual scores individually on the 3830 Scores website.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X DiD indeed take a 1st-place for the 7QP mixed-QRP category (8th place in the NEQP), while NX6T scored a resounding 1st-place for the New England QSO Party as a multi-OP operation (altho the official results have yet to be officially posted).

Thanks to shortened log submission periods and LCR software to sort it all out, virtually only 30 days later it has already been determined, that running QRP, WQ6X made a 1st-place finish (for California) in the Indiana (INQP) QSO Party, while NX6T took 1st-place with only 2 QSOs in the log.  This is yet another reason to submit a log, no matter how few QSOs are actually made.

DiD YOU engage in the Cinco-de-Contest QSO Parties?

How many counties DiD YOU Work?

NEWS FLASH!!

Last week, I received a 1st-place plaque for the 7QP QSO Party.
It would seem that my remote operation from Ramona was the TOP
QRP mixed mode operation outside of the 7th call area.  I even wrote
Part IV of a BLOG on the subject of just showing up to win in radiosport.