[HCRA] NEQP 2007

[George Collins]

Well, we have another NEQP in the logs.  It gets to be more fun, and 
interesting, each year.  I planned to operate a lot this year and did pretty 
well time wise.  I knew I would have to miss 6:00 to 10:00 PM Saturday, 
which was probably "prime time".  What I didn't expect, was to miss the last 
three hours of the test.  I was QRT when some of the smoke got out of the 
old TS-930S (anybody have a rig for the 20-meter cw Field Day station? :).

Aside from gaining an opportunity to learn more about the insides of my rig, 
the contest really was fun.  I made more phone contacts this year and about 
the same number of multipliers as last year.  The QRN seemed high on both 20 
and 40 at times.  I made only one contact on 15 (W1XX) and didn't work 80 at 
all (next year I'll have the 80-M dipole back).  It seemed like there was a 
lot of RTTY activity on 40 meters at times, as they moved down into the "cw 
section" of the band.  I didn't copy any of the RTTY, so I don't know what 
contest generated that activity.  About 2/3 of my QSOs were on 20 meters 
this year.

If I did the math correctly, and don't have any Qs deleted, I ended up with 
126 cw and 22 phone Qs with 45 multipliers for a score of 12,330 point.  A 
good increase over last year, but considering the increased number of hours 
on the air this year, it tells me I still have lots of things I can improve 
on for next year.  You can be sure I'm looking forward to NEQP 2008!

73,

George, KC1V
Somers, CT