[PaQSO] Questions from a newbie

[Mark Kempisty]

Steve,

Welcome to the contest, you'll have a blast and get a great introduction to
the sport of radio contesting.

The easier of the two questions to answer is yes you can work your own
county.  As an in-state operation you can work anybody anywhere for the
multiplier and points.  The only station you can't work is yourself but I'm
not sure if the Nittany ARC has ruled on schizophrenia yet ;-).

Dupe sheets take a little longer to explain and since I've been computer
logging for years haven't used one in a long time.  They let you write down
and sort the calls you've worked and "quickly" find them to see if you've
already worked them.  You would write the call you worked in the appropriate
box based on call district and first letter of suffix.  For mine - N3GNW -
it would go in the W3 column and G row.  Yours would go in the W3-I
intersection.  If you put in a dedicated effort, working over 500 stations
is easy and the dupe sheets quickly fail you.  In the old days ops worked
everybody and duped after the contest.

If you will have a PC with Windows available then let me recommend Don
Reamer KA3JWE's excellent PA QSO Party logging program.  (Search the web for
KA3JWE and you'll find his home page.)  It handles all of the subtle rules
perfectly and does the duping automatically telling you in real time if
you've worked the station previously.  You can work a station as many times
as you want and only the first will be counted with the rest marked as dupes
and not scored.  (Sometimes its faster to work a dupe than to try to figure
out and explain why, but this is the Friendly QSO Party so taking a moment
won't kill your score.)  At the end of the contest you can print out your
entry and have it in the mailbox within 30 minutes.  There are other
programs out there that handle the contest to different levels of success.
I use N1MM Free Contest Logger for the rest of my contest efforts but it
doesn't handle county line stations well.

Hope this helps!

73,
Mark - N3GNW
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hall" <setaf at sosbbs.com>
To: <paqso at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:46 PM
Subject: [PaQSO] Questions from a newbie


> This will be my first time participating in the PA QSO Party and I have
> never contested before. In going over the packet, I see a couple
questions.
> What is the Dupe Sheet and how is it used? Second, are contacts within
your
> own county allowed? I'm assuming if I make contact with another station
for
> my county I can count my county and any subsequent bands used by that
other
> station?
>
> Steve
> KB3IOJ
>
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