[PaQSO] W3USA/M Rough Totals & Story

[Hal Offutt]

Hi,

Great conditions and lots of activity made for a very fun weekend.

Here are very rough totals for W3USA/M for this year:

SSB              198
CW               782
80/160 CW   255

Total  contacts:  1235

Mults:  around 123

Counties operated:  16

Rough score 238,500, estimating 8-10 W3UU contacts.  My QSO total is down
over 100 from last year.  Excuses:  poorer setup, getting lost in Philly and
losing my mag mount and antenna three hours before the end of the contest,
costing about an hour of prime time operating.

My logs are on paper so I will have to enter them into the computer to get a
final score.  In looking through the logs, it looks like I missed a lot of
county mults.  I didn't see ADA, UNI, PER, WAY and CRN, maybe more.
Operating mainly CW with just a little SSB this year really cost me the
mults.  On the other hand, I picked up some fairly rare mults on CW this
year:  VE6, VE1 (both NB and NS), EB, SF, and a couple of other sections
that I usually don't work.

This year's operation was from a rental car.  I finally had to retire my old
'86 Chevy wagon recently.  This car served all of my mobile efforts between
1987 or 1986 and 2003.  I had that car wired for mobiling with two
batteries, numerous grounds and a trailer hitch for a bug catcher antenna.
It was so nice to have a car that I could abuse and not worry about it.  I
frequently stood on the roof to adjust my antennas, etc.  The Chevy didn't
mind at all.  I don't know what to replace her with.

As usual, everything was done at the last minute.  (Oh, to have the leisure
to actually be able to plan ahead!  Maybe someday.)  I planned my route in
an airplane on Wednesday on my way back from a business trip.  Physical
preparation began on Thursday with the choosing of what I needed to take
with me and loading it into the car.  This is was tougher than usual this
year.  Operating so far from home I felt I had to take everything that I
could possibly need, including things like a soldering gun, extension cord,
spare rig, spare mag mount, spare coax, etc. etc.

I have recently moved from PA to OH but my PA house in the Poconos is still
sitting empty so I spent Fri and Sat nights there.  I wanted to end up on
Sunday near the OH border, so my plan was to operate in the east on Saturday
and drive across the state on Sunday.  I was supposed to leave MOE Sunday
morning and end up in BUT or LAW at 6 PM, but things didn't quite work out
as planned.  Partially due to the antenna problem but also because I just
can't make myself move on when I am doing well in a county, I only made it
to CLE by the end of the contest, less than 2/3 of the way across the state.
That left me with a three hour drive home after the contest.  Total time in
the car from Friday moring to Sunday night:  about 32 hours.  I'm still
feeling the after effects.

I had an appointment in the Philly area on Friday afternoon so I left OH on
Friday morning and drove 7 hours to my appointment.  I didn't even get to
the house until 6 or 7.  Setting up consisted of building a table to put in
the passenger seat to hold the gear and then hooking up the battery, ground
and gear.  This sounds simple but it takes time to get things right.  I only
finished about half of the work on Friday night and had to do the rest early
Saturday morning.  I had planned to begin the contest in the Philly area and
I wanted to depart by 9 but it was actually 10 by the time I got on the
road.  I barely made it to MGY by the start of the contest, leaving me no
time to scout out a good place to operate or get near the next county line.
When I was ready to move on after the first 90 minutes in MGY, I got
terribly lost in the NW part of Philly, causing me to drive a lot more than
I had planned.

Fortunately, conditions and activity were great.  40 meters during the day
was super, with really nice short skip.  There have been years when it was
hard to work in-state stations on 40, but this year was fine.  20 and 80
were also in pretty good shape, with 80 almost QRN free.  I really missed my
bug catcher antenna, but of course there's no way to hook up one of those
monsters on a rental car.  I tried operating 75 meters with my Hustler but
very few stations could copy me so I gave up and concentreated on CW.
Although I didn't feel very loud on 80, I didn't do too bad.  It was a
thrill to be called not only by DL5MC but by VE7 and one or two stations in
OR in the space of a few minutes.  Those guys must have good ears.  I went
to 160 late Saturday night but could only find 3 stations to work.  Where
was everybody?  In previous years I have managed to work 20-30 stations on
160.

The frustrating thing about this event is that there are always about four
places where you can profitably operate, and I am constantly haunted by the
fear that I am not where I should be.  Chosing the optimum place to be at
any given time is part of the art of operating the PAQP.  I don't think I
did a very good job at it this year.  I never made it to 15 even one time.

My goal is to reach 300K at least once before I lay down my mobile antenna.
Back when some of the mobiles were doing multi-multi and I was operating
with my friend Larry N2AZS, we made it to 303K once, but I haven't been able
to get close since I've been operating by myself.  I'm sure it's doable by a
single op but it will take a lot of planning and some very good condx.

I really missed regular mobilers W3DYA and K4UK.  Neither could make it to
PA this year.  This is especially understandable in the case of W3DYA as he
has been driving all the way from TX for the last several years.  I worked
him two or three times on 20 meters this year but he was giving out low
numbers.  I guess after you've experienced the thrill of operating in PA as
a mobile, operating from TX is not so thrilling.  But it was good to hear
many other mobilers in there this year, some with very good signals and
good scores.  This category is starting to get very competitive.

Thanks to all of you for the many contacts and thanks to NARC for sponsering
this event.

73 and hope to see you all next year,

Hal W1NN op of W3USA/m