[PaQSO] Chester County and Hello Bud, AA3B and all DE WU3U

[morsenut at aol.com]

 Hi there Bud, AA3B OM, 

Nice to hear from you.

I'll probably get something together and will let you know for sure in the coming weeks.

It will be a rover effort around the PHI area - concentrating on CHE - given how rare it's been over the last five years.

Main mode will be CW but I will try to get on SSB...hope when folks hear that I am in CHE or PHI, and assuming those are as rare as they have been in the last five years - that someone will give me a decent run frequency.

My inspiration to do a rover thing is that I have Saturdays off now and I noticed the unbelievable rarity of CHE - over the last five years it's a little over 3 times as rare as SNY by the numbers, based on data taken from KD8MQ's website.

Hard to believe but if you run the numbers, it's the case, CHE has become as rare as hen's teeth.

Will it stay that way?  Probably...well no, not if I have my way, ha, I wanna knock it way down and hand out a lot of points from there!

Maybe it's rare now because Kay Cragie does not live there anymore?  I recall that she and her husband always did an all-out effort from CHE during the PAQP.

But given what's been going on in CHE the last five years or so - why go to SNY when CHE has become so rare - more rare than SNY itself?

PHI, at least by the numbers, ranks as only about "average" in terms of rarity.

Still, I'll make PHI the secondary focus of the rover effort - as it seems that the general consensus is that PHI is hard to find.

DCO ranks as just above "average" in terms of how hard it is to find, so that would be my tertiary focus.

MGY and BUX will be "dirt common again," but I'll move on to them when and if I fish out CHE and PHI, and DCO.

I have no idea why the Philly Metro counties are so inactive in PAQP - at least relative to their high populations.

Of course, room for antennas and all that, but still, it's not hard to get a loaded dipole for 40 or even 80 meters on top of a row home, or perhaps some kind of doublet fed with open wire line to a decent transmatch, with the antenna running around the perimeter - it can be and is done,  as there are guys in South Philly that have usable antennas on 40 and to a lessor extent 80 meters (but usable nonetheless).

Heck, one year (2007 I think)  I won Philadelphia County using 100W to a screwdriver antenna mounted on my pickup truck.  

Of course I was parked in a wide open area and I laid out some ground radials - but I never thought I would win anything.

Anyhow, if things come together, I will be out there.

If not, then I may just find a multi-multi outfit that needs a CW operator..ha.

73 Bud and all,

Tim
WU3U
ex-N8LXR