[PaQSO] KA3QLF claimed score 2002 PAQSO plus comments

[Ka3qlf@aol.com]

2002 PAQSO Party, 2002 claimed score:

Single Op, Home Station, QRO  <High Power>  Lackawanna county, EPA

Band/Mode         Qso's       Points
160/80 CW          46            92
Other CW            68           102
Phone Qso's       902          902

Totals:              1016         1096

Multipliers:  143 total
65 counties   missed Law and Jun
77 Sections   15m and 20m paid off real well all weekend
 1 DX   many contacts, but only one multy

Raw Score: 156728

8 contacts with W3FRC x 200= 1600 bonus points <worked them on 5 diff bands, 
would like more details about the 5 band W3FRC Cert.>
 
Total Claimed Score:   158328   <another LAC county record>

Comments:

Mobile Stations:
                Another great effort on your parts to activate all counties, 
especially those which had fewer home or rover stations.  I made several 
QSO's qith mobile stations this year, more than last year.  Great Job.

Operator courtesy again this year was outstanding, save for some which I 
couldn't even identify.  Pileups people gave only one call, and were patient 
when I would work a mobile or QRP because that is all I could hear of their 
call. 

Murphy hit me this year in a couple of ways:

       Antenna switch broken, have to run outside to the base of the tower 
each time to change antenna's.  <Up stairs, through most of the house, fight 
the jungle of decorative shrubbery, find that I have forgotten the 
flashlight, run back into the house for flashlight, through the jungle again, 
switch the coax, and back through the house, so on.  Do that most band 
changes, and you'll think I'm nuts>

       4 hours into the test, squelch button on rig gets turned way right, 
causing recieve to go "intermittent audio"  stop, switch radio's, find that 
older radio doesn't have same mike config as new one, dig for 20 minutes to 
find mike that eventually doesn't work. can't hook up Amp, different pin set 
up, so now I"m stuck cw only <Obviously not my strong point> on 150 watts 
<do-able, but not my fortay> fight with that for 45 minutes or so, determine 
that it would be better to fight with intermittent audio than try this cw 
fulltime, hook other radio back up, turn a bunch of knobs, and all is fine 
again.

          Approx 1730z on Saturday, switch to 15m phone-go through the 
antenna run-through, load up amp/radio, find freq, call cq first qso, 
feedback rushes into keyboard, totally screws up JWE's logging program. on a 
486 75mhz machine, reboot time is LONG.

      Other than that, everything went real well. I practiced CW a little 
this year, and I even get enough courage to call cq on CW, which paid off 
real well, probably not from CW operators eyes, but from a guy who normally 
talks all day, I let my fingers do some talking last weekend. Scary enough, 
it was actually kind of fun. 


       Changes this year compared to last:

     a 160M dipole that worked real well.  I put it up during the monsoon 
that hit NEPA Friday afternoon, and had a lot of trim work to get SWR down, 
paid off with 48 qso's, 21 of then CW, during a timeperiod where last few 
years, I would just sit there listen to the activity on my 80m dipole, and 
wonder.

      The CW practice that enabled me to actually Call CQ...will do more of 
that for next year.  especially during down times.


Changes in the works for next year:

       More CW practice
       Addition of a 6m rig <had a couple of requests this year for a 6m QSO>
       Spend more time Sunday afternoon on 15 and 10 M
         --I followed the high band suggested time Sched, 10m at 1900, 15 at 
2000, 20 at 2100, etc.  10 and 15 both paid off real well compared to the 
activity on 40m. My only regret is that I left 10 and 15m to follow time 
sched.  Many ops were answering my CQ, mini pileups ocurred, and I believe 
that many more QSO's could have happened had I stayed on those bands.  
        Work a little harder at beating QRM, QRN, etc from stations close-by. 
 I found myself giving up a hot freq earlier than normal this year because of 
QRM. 
        Definitely listen to pileups harder for mobiles, rovers, and QRP 
stations.  I am sure I missed many QSO's with the above during pileups by 
taking the "strongest" station first.

Question before I go: 

         when submitting logs, does NARC want summary, dupe AND paper logs?  
or do they just want summary and Dupes.  
         How many other stations were operation from LAC this year?  I worked 
two others, one on 2m, another on 80m late in the test.

            Thank you again to all operators of PAQSO.  It was another very 
fun weekend,  and I am already looking forward to next years test. Very 73 to 
all

   Scott   KA3QLF