[PaQSO] 20m vs 40 & 80m

[Hank Greeb]

I'll chime in with a similar observation - but also put in a plug for 
more operation on 80 meters.  40 meters works fine from here during the 
daytime, but frequently skip is long on 40 in the evening, yet activity 
seems low in evening hours on 80.

There were folks within Pennsylvania decrying the fact that few 
California and operators from western states were few and far between 
during the recent PAQP.  Could this be due to he fact that there were 
very few ops on 10, 15, and 20 meters?  Activity breeds activity.

And, for folks doing 100% S&P (or near 100%) there were stations from 
many counties which had nice signals, but were only working S&P, or at 
least I never found them "running."  They were from counties I didn't 
have in my log.  Yup, I did very little "running" because with 5 watts 
to an antenna "proven to be a few dB better than a dummy load buried 6' 
under ground" an attempt at "running" is a bit like using a dummy load 
for an antenna.

72/73 de n8xx Hg
QRP >99.44% of the time

On 10/25/2013 5:29 PM, Jimk8mr at aol.com wrote:
> W3IZ's comments are much in agreement with what I have observed.
>
> I'm of the opinion that this is a culture issue, not something that will be affected much by rules (i.e. extra points for 20 meters & up, for example).
>
> The PA QSO **PARTY** is much like any other party. There are two types of parties - ones where you invite close friends and have a good time hanging out  together, and ones where you invite lots of people, including people you may not know well or even at all, but would like to get to know. Think fraternity  parties - do you limit it to your own fraternity, or do you invite the whole  campus?
>   
> If you extend an invitation to all but then just hang out with your close friends, the outsiders will lose interest and wander off to someplace where they  are welcomed, or at least not ignored. Hold several events like this and experience and the word do get out.
>   
> Parties of the first kind can still be a lot of fun. Just don't be surprised when outsiders don't get excited about coming.
>   
> 73   -   Jim   K8MR         ( /R in 2013 until the  minivan breaks broke)
>   
> p.s   Comments posted on the 3830 Contest Score reporting  site, from KU8E in Georgia, who spent 12 hours and made 250 QSOs in  the PaQP this year. Things must be even worse in W6 where 40 meters is not an  option at all for most of the time:
>
> "This  is the first time I really spent much time in the PQP. It appears that most  of the activity is on 40 meters (during the day and 80 at night) with PA stations  mostly working each other. If you were too far away to work PA
> during the day on the lower bands this QSO party would really suck. I'm borderline and could work the louder stations on 40 during the day. Too bad more stations didn't go to 20 meters since it was open to PA pretty good from GA. Most
> of my 20 meter SSB QSO's were answers to my CQ's."
>
>   
> In a message dated 10/25/2013 4:56:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> w3iz at sbcglobal.net writes:
>
>
> My  observation has been that many ops seem to be looking for a clean sweep of PA counties and pass up on more mults outside of the state.  I have  operated this contest for a few decades both inside and outside of PA and from some rare counties. I can say that the advantage of being inside PA is that you get to work EVERYBODY.  When operating outside of PA you can go for  some long stretches without a QSO if trying to run.  It also seems that there are fewer stations running and just S&P looking for counties. Just my observations.
> 73,
> Norm  W3IZ