[PaQSO] N2CU/m PAQP results

[Tom Williams]

Well, as many have stated the conditions were terrible on Sunday. Unknown to
me was the solar flare Saturday and the super high A-index Sunday. But this
little mobile who could tried to make the best of it. I started just over
the NY-PA line at the visitor center on I-90. I did pretty well right off
the bat on 40m but when things slowed down I switched to 20. The band
sounded dead. That's when I realized it was going to be one of those days.
Worked 2 PA, 1 TX and my good buddy Paul WB2ABD back in Hamburg, NY. 58 QSOs
from Erie. 

 

I then drove nearly an hour (yikes) to Crawford and worked 38 stations, all
on 40m. Rather than continue down I-79 to Mercer I took a shortcut towards
Venango and was pleasantly surprised when the GPS indicated I crossed into
Mercer anyway. 40 minutes driving there (yuk). 31 QSOs including a very loud
VE9HF. It was only 12 minutes to reach Venango next with its 23 QSOs.

 

53 minutes (was it really that long?) after leaving Venango I reached
Clarion which produced 38 QSOs including my first left coast QSOs with two
stations in WWA. I then drove 50 minutes to Jefferson for my only DX, DL3GA.
JEF produced 48 QSOs, 20 of them on 20m (woo hoo). I was not in the best of
locations there, parking at the same truck stop as last year. I should have
remembered that it was noisy then and just as noisy this time. If I just
travelled a mile up the road I would have been at a better elevation and
quieter location.

 

Several times during my trip I was asked by Keith, WA3HAE, when I was going
to Warren. My schedule had me activating Elk and McKean before Warren but
when I checked my GPS, it said I would not reach Warren until 6PM if I left
immediately from Jefferson. Not wanting to disappoint anyone who might be
needing Warren for a sweep, I chose to hightail it directly there. I
actually arrived with 45 minutes to spare but stopped in the city as soon as
I could find a parking lot where I wouldn't be bothered by the public. A
little noisy but I made do. Warren produced 49 QSOs with 10 on 20m. Last
year Warren was very much in demand and I even had schedules with a couple
of stateside and DX stations. Not this time.

 

Everything worked pretty well for me; no visit from Murphy and the homebrew
center loaded vertical on the SUV roof worked better than the hamsticks I
used last time. I was going to try SSB and Digital but there was no time.
N1MM says I operated 4:25 out of 9 hours. I have to improve on the
operating/driving ratio next time. But it's all about having fun and I did.
Plus it was a nice warmup for this weekend's NYQP when I will be mobiling
once again. I hope to work a bunch of you using the callsign N2Y, good for
the 1x1 NYQP award.

 

40m      236 CW QSOs

20m      42 CW QSOs

76 Mults

No bonus QSOs

45,756 points

 

73,

Tom N2CU <><  

N2Y in the 2012 NYQP