[NLRS] January VHF and MnQP

[w0zq at aol.com]

Hello NLRS land.

Just to remind everyone that the ARRL January VHF contest is this 
weekend from 1:00 pm Saturday to 10:00 pm Sunday night. I will be 
operating my home station on 6m through 3456 and will be on and off 
throughout the whole weekend. With the cold weather, it will be tough 
on the rotators ! Everyone get on, make a few Q's, and send in a log.

The Minnesota QSO Party is just two weeks later, February 2 from 8:00 
am to 6:00 pm, just ten hours long. In addition to the VHF class, there 
is a HF Phone only catagory, HF mixed mode (CW and fone) and mobile 
catagory. The contest exchange is your first name and your country. 
Full rules can be found at http://www.w0aa.org/mnqp.htm .

I do want to pass along some tips to potential first time MnQP players.

1) Minnesota stations work the World (and other Minnesota stations) and 
the World works Minnesota stations. In order for anyone to find you, 
you need to call "CQ". On phone, call "CQ CQ Minnesota QSO Party, <your 
call>". On CW, send "CQ CQ MNP <your call>".

2) If you are a mobile, indicate so with the county in your call 
extension. For example, if I am mobile in Houston county, on phone I 
would say "CQ CQ Minnesota QSO Party, W0ZQ Mobile Houston County". On 
CW, send "CQ CQ MNP W0ZQ/HOU". That is how other stations know you are 
a mobile. The three letter CW county abbreviations can be found on the 
above mentioned link.

3) On HF, given where we are at in the solar cycle, the higher bands 
are punk. 15m MAY have a little activity, but the primary bands will be 
20, 40 and 80m .... even a little 160m for those who have it. 20m goes 
long by around 3:00 or 4:00 pm. Last year, overall, 50% of ALL MnQP 
contacts were made on 40m, with 25% on 20m and 25% on 80m. 40m is the 
money band with activity from start to finish.  You can usually find 
SOME 80m activity throughout the day and its the best way to work other 
Mn counties as they are multipliers too. So, in terms of what bands you 
need, 40m for sure, followed by 20m during the daylight hours and 80m 
especially towards the end - say 4 to 6pm.  160m is a bonus, plus 15m 
and 10m.  For local contacts, don't forget to QSY them through whatever 
bands you have.

4) Where to find activity. The link listed above shows the suggested 
freqs. On CW, its basically 50 KHz up from the bottom of each band, for 
example 14050 KHz. Activity seems to spread out over say 030 to 060. On 
phone its 14270, 7250, and 3850. Find a hole close to these freqs and 
call CQ MNP !

Thats it. If you have not tried HF mobiling before, this is one event 
to give it a go at. Lots of fun, each county is a new "grid", and 
stations are looking for you. Hamsticks are about $25 and they work 
very well, I use one on 20m, 40m, and 80m and made 629 contacts from 12 
counties last year.   One suggestion is to roof mount them, not bumper 
mount them, if possible.  You may also need some impedance matching 
especially on 40 and 80m.

Hope to work a bunch of you this weekend in the VHF contest and two 
weeks later in the MnQP. Ask questions if you have any.

73, Jon
W0ZQ
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