[PaQSO] More on 20m and Good Neighbor QSOs...

[Michael Coslo]

On Oct 22, 2013, at 4:59 AM, kb3co at comcast.net wrote:

> 
> It was not only the CA stations that felt left out this year - Last week I received the below attached email from an unhappy county hunter from Texas. 


These numbers are extremely preliminary, but at least one station in NTX reports 40 20 meter CW QSOs, 55 phone and 14  15 meters CW QSOs and 16 phone.

Even 40 and 80 meter CW and phone QSOs.

We have others with similar results. The QSO's are there to be had. Not as many as we might like, but some folks are snagging them.

So I'm not sure why the Unhappy Texan had no 20 meter QSOs. I'm wondering if he was having antenna issues. 

Now keeping in mind that this is a state QSO Party, we'll naturally be concentrating more on Pennsylvania Ops. It is important to us to have out of state Ops also. Plus county hunters can add interest.

But we have a chicken and egg situation. We see this every year. 40 meters is the bread and butter band, especially since PA Ops are trying to contact other PA Ops. 

You have to have a good reason to leave a band where you can really make a lot of QSOs. We see this every year with 6 meters. A band there for the taking during the party. But with skeds and all, it's still a uphill battle.

So what is needed is a good reason for the PA Ops to get on 20 meters. That means there needs to be traffic. 

We do try to encourage out of state Ops to enter the party - that's why we have the 20 meter Good Neighbor award.

The only really good way beyond that is to encourage Multi Op Multi Transmitter operations. If you have that, you almost automatically have someone on 20.

In addition, while we encourage county hunters to join the fun, regretfully, I don't get many logs from them.

Things I won't do is raise point value for 20 meter and up operations. I'm still in the witness protection program with the digital modes.


	-73 Mike N3LI -