[PaQSO] There Are More Than Two Bands

[Jim]

I noticed that many stations who posted logs appear to
only have a handful of contacts with the bonus station
this year.  I also saw that the bulk of the contacts
appear on 80m and 40m.  If you parked in these areas,
you certainly missed quite a bit.

I have done many things over the years, as far as this
contest goes.  This year, I spent the contest on 15m,
10m, 6m, and 2m.  Did SSB, a few CW, and some FM.  The
upper HF bands were wide open for the entire weekend. 
Good coverage all across PA, the continental US, and
great DX.  Unfortunately, nobody was home!  It was
extremely frustrating when someone tells you that you
are a steady S9, but there is nobody there to work
you!  

The same thing applies to 6m and 2m.  Everyone at
least has 2m FM.  Where were you?  You could have
programmed the simplex frequencies in and let the
radio scan all weekend.  

I made a fair number of contacts on all of these
bands, but could have had many more if people decided
to show up.  I suspect that many of you didn’t go to
the higher bands, you didn’t call CQ at all, you
missed the activity hours, etc.  Well, the sunspots
played a few tricks.  Germany was booming in, Italy,
California, etc.  Even Allentown and Philly were loud
in LUZ.  The local propagation was excellent, too!

It is important for us to use these bands.  Many out
of state and DX contesters rely on us being there.  I
worked a DX station who thanked me a lot.  He said
that I was the ONLY PA op he managed to work on 10m. 
He seemed to be agitated that PA ops were ignoring out
of town people.  

Same goes for 6m and 2m.  This gives the new hams the
chance to dabble in a contest.

Basically, I think that you need to appear in
different places, throw out some calls, show up for
the activity hours, etc.  There are recommended
frequencies, so scan around there, too.  Don’t assume
if someone is not EXACTLY on the recommended
frequency, that no one is around, dial and smile!  Go
20 KHz in each direction.  It would seem logical to
show up on the half hour.  I do not mean every half
hour, but if people pop in at say 17:00, 17:30, 18:00,
etc., you can reliably know that if you scan a window
around the recommended frequency, you may bump into
some ops.  Some people seemed to do this.  Many
contacts were had, every half hour. 

One thing that I can certainly attest to is the fact
that the bonus station was on EVERYWHERE!  If you
didn’t work it a whole pile of times, that is your own
fault.  An effort was made to be everywhere humanly
possible.  There were multiple bands, modes, etc. 
Within reason, everyone who came calling was worked. 
If you elected to never leave 80m SSB and 40m SSB,
then that is why you only worked the bonus twice.  The
bonus station also had excellent elevation, making
higher contacts quite feasible.  

As far as the high bands go, “You snooze, you lose!” 
After awhile, you will have worked almost everyone on
the low bands anyway, you how many more contacts can
you get?  If nobody gets on other bands and makes
noise, of course nobody will be there to work.  The
old self-fulfilling prophecy.

Jim
N3PBH



	
		
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