[PaQSO] Results of N3IW from Clinton County, Portable Multi-Op QRP

[Mark Schreiner]

This year I decided to do something a little different than my typical
portable QRP activity to a rare county to try to break a record.  For
several years I have asked Chip, N3IW, if he would like to operate PA QSO
Party and this was finally the year that he said he would like to give it a
shot.  So, we planned a Multi-Op Portable effort.  We were not sure if we
could do QRP as such, so we checked with Mike, N3LI, and he authorized it,
although nobody is sure if that had ever been done before.  If anyone knows
of a previous portable multi-op QRP effort, please let me know, otherwise,
I am going to declare ours to be the first!

We ended up operating at the Holiday Pines Campground located just off the
Loganton Exit of I-80 in eastern Clinton County, located within just a few
miles from Center, Union and Lycoming Counties, but not close enough to be
a county line.  I had operated from that same campground in 2010 when I
rented a cabin and operated Single Op QRP.  This year we took Chip's RV
trailer and operated from RV site #74, although our antennas spanned sites
72 - 76 and luckily there were no other campers in those sites.  You could
hear traffic from I-80 nearby but otherwise the campground is very quiet
and seems very nice.  The owners were very friendly to our operation and I
reminded them that I had operated from there a few years ago as well - they
remembered.  It is located between exits 185 and 192 but a bit closer to
exit 185.

I thought propagation was a bit challenging and I was missing several
counties and quite a few multipliers and came up a few QSOs short compared
to previous years when I operated in Somerset in 2013, Mifflin in 2012 and
Cameron on 2011 (in 2014 I was operating in support of the multi-county
Bonus Station effort as W3TDF/CLE from downtown Clearfield with antennas on
the roof of the Dimeling Hotel using 100W so I won't count that activity),
but we had a great time.  Here is a summary of our results, showing a
really big lack of Q's (not for any lack of effort) on 20m.  Of course with
QRP, CW is quite a bit easier than SSB, although I have in the past had
about a 50/50 split between CW & SSB QSOs:

        Band   Mode  QSOs
         1.8  CW      14
         3.5  CW     118
         3.5  LSB     99
           7  CW     175
           7  LSB     70
          14  CW      29
          14  USB      2
       Total  Both   507

            CW QSOs:  336
            SSB QSOs: 171
            Points:  843
            2x multiplier for QRP = 1686

            Counties:  60 (missed ARM, BED, CLE, FOR, JUN, NUM and UNI)
            Sections:  43

            Score before Bonus = 173,658
            Bonus Station QSOs = 4 x 200 points each = 800 points  (160m,
80m and 40m CW and 75m SSB)
            Total Score : 174,458

I heard many of the counties listed above that I missed but they were doing
S&P at the time and if they ended up running I sure didn't find them.  We
had three major highlights in the contest.  First and foremost was working
Ray, W3TDF, aka Da Grump on 40m SSB a couple of hours in to the start of
the contest (+1 to what John, KD8MQ already said!).  Second was breaking
through the pileup to work N2CU/m in Cameron.  I worked Tom while he was in
four different counties and I sure wish I had found him while he was in
Forest.  I think we missed most of the other mobile operations,
unfortunately.  Third was breaking the Clinton County multi-op record that
had been set in 1997 (actually broken before midnight on Saturday).

As others have said, thanks to the mobiles and rovers but also to the
portable stations who activate counties that aren't well represented
otherwise.

Now that I'm warmed up from PAQP, I can't wait for other contests of the
upcoming season, such as November Sweepstakes, ARRL 10m, various 160m
'tests and of course the CQ WW Contests at the end of this month and next
month.

73 and already looking forward to next year!

Mark, NK8Q (on behalf of the N3IW team)