Operated QRP this year in the PA QSO Party. What a wild ride… broke three score records after the dust settled: CW-only, QRP, and Crawford County Single OP. Operating QRP wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but SO2R really helped to keep some semblance of a rate. I was able to maintain an average rate of 39/hr on the first day. It’s a far cry from a 140+/hr rate in one of the Thursday night NS CW Sprints…
3830 submission:
Pennsylvania QSO Party
Call: NO3M
Operator(s): NO3M
Station: NO3M
Class: Single Op CW QRP
QTH: CRA
Operating Time (hrs):
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs RTTY Qs PSK31 Qs
---------------------------------------
160: 49
80: 191
40: 294
20: 95
15: 12
10: 1
6:
2:
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Total: 642 0 0 0 Mults = 123 Total Score = 316,664
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments:
QRP is not my cup of tea, but based on past observations, it is the only way to "win" the CW only category with the 2x QRP multiplier. However, it worked out better than expected. Broke three score records: CW-only, QRP, and Crawford County SO.
It was actually pleasant to not have the usual K3 thumping when running LP or HP. Got ignored on numerous occasions, only had my CQ freq clobbered a couple times, and lost hope in a few pileups for the "rare" counties. Luckily had second chances on all the needed counties and worked all those I heard on.
Sunday's rate was kept up by moving as many stations as possible to other bands, just like moving guys in NAQP for mults. Second radio was always active, either dueling CQs on the most productive bands, S&P, keeping track of the mobiles and rovers, or moving stations. BTW, the mobiles and rovers do an awesome job! There are just a lot of counties lacking regular CW activity, so they really fill in the gaps.
QRP next time? Probably not unless the overall band conditions are better. 10M was shot, 15M had a nice opening to the west and SW Sunday afternoon, but lousy otherwise.
62 / 67 counties (missed ARM, CLE, CMB, GRE, NUM)
60 W/VE Sections
1 DX
4 x200 bonus pts w/ W3C
x2 QRP multiplier
2x K3 @ 5W
160M Four Square + beverage arrays / 8-circle
80M Dipole + Bobtail curtain E/W + beverages
40M 4-el Delta-loop wire-beam West, 3-el delta-loop wire-beam SW, Dipole
20M 5-el delta-loop wire-beam West, 3-el delta-loop wire-beam SW, Dipole
15M 3-el wire yagi, Dipole
10M Dipole
