[PaQSO] W3UU/M score

[Joe Stepansky]

This is a preliminary look:

CW:             484
80/160 CW:      210
SSB             259
                 -----
Total           953

Sections          52
Counties          57
DX                 1

Raw score       154,550
Bonus              6,500   (13 counties with > 10 QSOs)
                 -----------
Total Score     161,050

Ops:  Charlie, KB3CO and Joe, KQ3F.

I have no idea whether our score counts for anything, and it really doesn't 
matter to us.

This was a far better effort than last year's rookie effort.  This time we 
actually pretended to have a clue about what we were doing, though we still 
learned some valuable lessons.  The goal was to give as many people as many 
QSOs as possible.  With apologies to those on the west coast, we made some 
decisions that hurt their ability to work us.  Unlike a fixed station, we 
can work people as often as we like on the same band/mode so long as we're 
in a different county.  So we kept hitting 40 CW, 40 SSB and 20 CW.  At 
night we traded 20 CW for 80 CW.  We tried to make up for it by getting 
ourselves spotted on packet as often as possible.  But that didn't matter 
for those not using packet.

We also had to cancel ARM and INN visits due to time considerations.  As it 
was, we were in central Clinton county when the contest ended, and KB3CO 
still had to make his way home to suburban Philadelphia after dropping me 
off in Harrisburg.  A full weekend, to be sure.

You also have to understand that I never used paddles for CW.  Everything 
that was sent was done using function keys on the laptop.  So if it seemed 
that I was being rude or unresponsive, it was probably because I couldn't 
"converse" easily.  By far the funniest CW moment occurred on Sunday where 
someone sent "spell CRN", meaning "spell Cameron".  Spell CRN???  How am I 
supposed to spell CRN without a paddle??  But the requests 
continued.  Finally I went into the CW config screen, changed F6 to 
Cameron, and pressed F6.  Guess it worked.

We started in JUN where it occupies about 1 mile of land along route 
11/15.  Then on to SNY where we stopped at a picnic area.  I think KB3CO 
took a picture of the setting and hope he can post it somewhere.  If that 
isn't a recruiting picture for mobiling I don't know what is, with the 
Susquehanna River flowing in the background, some color on trees, etc.  Nice.

On to NUM, where we learned that going the wrong way down a one way street 
in the town of Northumberland is not a good idea.  Got ourselves corrected 
without incident.  On to I-80 and MTR, where we did another rest stop 
operation.  So far nothing too exciting.

Yes, we were in UNI.  We made all of five QSOs.  Not sure why that 
happened, but it did.  Maybe it was the lack of a rest stop.  But it was on 
to CLI and a return to the scene of probably our most successful operation 
in 2003, the I-80 westbound rest stop.  This year wasn't much different, as 
we probably spent 2 hours there working anyone who'd call.  We had also 
planed to head up to CRN and POT and places like that, but decided to 
postpone that until Sunday and daylight (it gets incredibly dark in CRN, 
POT, etc.).  So we stayed on I-80 and kept on that route until we thought 
we'd stop for the night in DuBois (here's where things get interesting).

HA!!!!!!!!!!

As two Penn State grads we should have known better.  We knew there was a 
home football game and planed our route accordingly.  What we didn't 
realize is that you can't get a hotel room within 60 miles of Penn State on 
football Saturdays.  We were told there were no rooms in DuBois or 
Brookville.  Try the Super 8 in Clarion (about 40 miles west of 
DuBois).  Well, being stubborn we stopped in Brookville anyway (it's now 
1:15 AM).  Ask the desk clerk about rooms.  Nope, none, but you might try 
the Super 8 in Clarion.  OY!

On to Clarion.  Stop at the Super 8.  We got the last room, though an 
elderly gentleman arrived after we did and I thought I was going to feel 
badly for taking "his" room.  The hotel clerks said they had one room but 
it had a leak in the ceiling.  The gentleman noted, quite wisely, that it 
wasn't raining and probably wouldn't.  They agreed and gave him the room at 
a significant discount.  You don't see this stuff if you're in your home as 
a fixed station.  We finally settled into our room at about 1:45 
AM.  Note:  some may ask, as my wife did, why we didn't just make a 
reservation.  The trouble is that we really didn't know where we'd be.

The bad news for 2005 is that there's a home football game on October 
8.  The worse news is that the opponent is Ohio State.  There won't be an 
available hotel room between State College and the Ohio state line.  Can 
anyone say northern tier counties?????

I need to explain something about Sunday.  It was always our intention to 
go to FOR.  Had we known how rare it was, we would have headed there.  But 
we didn't know.  And since we had a pileup in JEF just before we stopped 
for the night, we figured we'd do CLA, then head to JEF, then head north to 
FOR.  Except that we missed the exit on I-80.  Sorry about that.  Now, had 
we gotten a hotel room in DuBois, we would have been westbound into JEF and 
CLA, then driving northeast into FOR.  So it's all the football team's fault.

Next stop was CLE, then up to ELK, CRN, POT and MCK.  We stopped in a bank 
parking lot in ELK and a small park in CRN.  It's amazing we had any kind 
of signal given that we were surrounded by what passed for "mountains" 
(with apologies to those in the West).  Didn't spend much time in MCK, but 
spent a lot of time in Potter, parked in the grass beside a state road (you 
get the most interesting stares when you do that).  Then back to CRN and 
the coup de grace, a return visit to CLI.  This part is funny, because 
something weird happened in CLI.  KB3CO took the mic and went to 40 SSB and 
I could have sworn he'd acquired a cape and a big red C on his chest 
(Contester).  The stations wouldn't stop calling him.  On and on it 
went.  When it was all said and done, we'd nailed 204 QSOs just in CLI, 
which is phenomenal for us.

To sum up, we did our best.  Hope everyone enjoyed working us as much as we 
enjoyed being out there.  We have bigger and better plans for next year, we 
just need to stay away from State College.

73, Joe KQ3F