NYQP - The Rest of the Story
These NYQP write-ups have lots more info that don't fit into the traditional Soapbox format, so we put them here. But don't miss out on the Soapbox!
W0BH (ks)
Score should include 100000 bonus points for watching the Yankees pull it out in the 13th!
Good activity and great fun for an excellent first NYQP! Activity really slowed down during the game and late, but some good runs in between. I picked up 6 mobiles, but only worked each of them once:
WB2ABD, WJ20, K2ZAA, W2PV, N2YTF, KC2QZF.
It was obvious from several of the posts that the late hours discouraged mobile activity which is really important to most QSO parties. I enjoy going /m in QSO parties as well, but my enjoyment really declines after dark because the driving and navigation becomes more difficult and 80m mobile is less efficient than higher bands. Perhaps a change in hours would help get more mobile activity out there for next year.
Having said that, the fixed activity was excellent. Overall, I worked 125 unique calls. I had no idea what to expect for county coverage and missed BRX CAT CHA CGO HAM JEF LEW MTG ORL OSW SCU SEN SUL ULS WAS.
Thanks to the following stations who topped my log:
4 W2M W2TZ
3 AE2T K2ZR N2SQW N2ZN NT2A
I hope the Rochester DX Association tries this again next year .. good job! Thanks to all for the Qs.
73, Bob
W2M (ny)
We operated from an unheated cottage on Keuka Lake. With plastic on the windows, space heaters, ducting the dryer heat into the building and the heat from four computers and rigs, we were able to raise the 32 degrees to 70 degrees during the contest.
This contest would be much better if it started and ended two hours earlier. Conditions were very poor at the start and 75/80 never opened to the left coast for us.
We operated Field Day style with inverted Vee antennas we hung in the trees with the temperature in the low 30's and a light rain falling. We installed a long wire for use on 160 but couldn't get anyone to hear us. Next year we will have to install a better 160 antenna as we lost out on a lot of Q's.
We had a bit of snow on the tops of the trees and we never saw the sun until taking down the antennas on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful drive back to Pittsburgh while listening to the Steeler game on the car radio.
W2LC/M (ny)
I got a late start since the coax connections to the antenna mag-mount were so rusted there wasn't any connection left. No wonder it hasn't been working well. A trip to the hardware store for a couple drill bits and a 3/8-24 tap, and about 45 minutes of work and I was back in business. I broke the rusted bolt trying to get it apart, so I had to drill out what was left of the bolt, re-tap the hole, replace the bolt, re-do the coax connections and put it back together. I guess I am ready for next year. I only started about 30 minutes late, so that's not too bad.
I was running 5 watts with an FT817, since I couldn't get my TS-430 to work, not enough juice from the 12V outlet. I didn't have time to tie into the ground on the vehicle, so I taped a couple radials to the top of my Caravan which seemed to help. 75 QSO's mobile with 5 watts isn't too bad. So OK2EC if you are reading this, I am really impressed that you were able to hear my 5 watts on 40 meters!
My directions were pretty good so I didn't get lost. Well not too much. And I only hit one tree with the antennas, which is amazing since the whips were on top of my Caravan. Driving through Ontario, Seneca and Yates counties by Seneca Lake is some of the most beautiful NY country side you would ever want to see.
All of the Seneca Lake wineries (the west side of the lake) seemed to have something going on, but I didn’t stop for any wine tastings. I was really tempted, but I pushed on. I stopped at a lake side parking area in Geneva and enjoyed Seneca Lake while working stations. The fingerlakes region of New York state is a great place to visit if you like great countryside and wine tours.
After dark my otherwise good directions got much harder to follow, the darkness made it much more difficult to see the road signs, but I managed. I went way on top of some hill in Schuyler County but by that time 20 meters was dead and 40 meters was pretty long. I couldn't work many stations from what is one of the least populated counties in New York. A lucky 4 stations made the log (40m CW) for Schuyler County -- even OK2EC, my vote for best ears in the world.
I activated 7 counties including Onondaga, Cayuga, Wayne, Seneca, Ontario, Yates, and Schuyler. My plan was to activate 4 more counties, Chemung, Tioga, Steuben and Tompkins, but 20 meters went dead about 6:30PM local. 40 meters went so long that 40 was basically useless after about 7:30PM local. No 40m and no 20m with 6 and a half hours left in the contest! Ouch! That really hurt, since my best mobile band is 20m. 40m worked okay too, but not enough daylight for the shorter distance contacts.
Looks like 47 QSOs on 20m and 27 QSOs on 20m, and only 1 QSO on 80m. 80 meters didn’t sound good, very long skip and I couldn’t hear the NY stations too well, let alone work any of them.
I called CQ on 40m for an hour without an answer, so I decided to pack it in. The last 2 hours yielded only 2 QSO's. I tried 80m but all the New York stations were S-zero and I could only hear W1IBQ and W0BH. QRP and mobile on 80m doesn’t work too well.
Actually all the bands went so long so early I didn’t work a single NY station! I am very disappointed that I couldn’t work anyone in NY. I was hoping to work some of those rare NY counties myself. Oh well. At least I was able to give out a few.
73 Scott
K8MR (oh)
It's only two hours to the New York state line, so I had considered driving up to operate mobile. However, once I realized the hours, I gave up that idea pretty quickly. Driving around for 8 hours after dark when 80 meters is likely your only working band is not my idea of a good time. Little did I know that I would have had to deal with snow as well!
I had hoped to spend more time than I did, but a one hour job of reorienting a side mounted yagi at K8AZ turned into a bigger project when we discovered that the boom to mast plate was seriously cracked. We got it fixed, but after that and taking my wife out to dinner it was 80 and 160 only time.
Not much evening activity from the NYC area. Was everyone watching the Yankees instead?
73 - Jim
WB2ABD/M (ny)
I was excited about going mobile in the NYQP. After a lot of prep work, the PAQP the week before tune-up was a disaster, as the laptop was uncooperative. Thanks to N2CU and GH Engineerings' rig interface, that problem was solved. Then the bed mount on the truck proved a little too light for a mast with a bunch of resonators, and my driver had unexpected plans.
So I went solo (park and run) and switched antennas.
The day started with heavy rain, changed to sun and 60 degrees and drove through snow and fog at night ( I missed the deer herd on fog-bound Rte. 39 road in Sardinia). I decided to head back home due to snow, so I changed my route.
Had a hard time finding a "quiet" place to run in Tioga county. Could have done better on 80/75M ... lots of fixed stations but few heard me ... vagaries of low-band mobile. Also, activity dropped off dramatically a few hours after dark, where even 40M pooped out.
Ran SEN YAT SCH CHE TIO STE ALL WYO CAT ERI.
Need to have the contest time slot moved back for more daylight operating time.
Thanks to everyone who heard and worked me, and to RDXA and participating clubs for sponsoring the event. C'ya next year... with real antennas.
WJ2O/M (WJ2O/AI2N) (ny)
WJ2O: I rose from the dead (my bed) early Saturday morning because knew I had far too much work to get done on the vehicle before the test. I could not find the whips for my Hustler 75 or 80 meter coils. I was going crazy looking for them with full knowledge that I had taken inventory of all the coils and whips 2 weeks prior. But, we had to embark knowing we had no low bands.
I wanted to start the test on the Oneida/Herkimer County line which is about 40 minutes from my home. However, we didn't leave the home QTH until about 20 minutes before the test. At the start of the drive my mind was panicky revisiting all the problems we encountered getting set up. Wouldn't you know I had to add to the list of problems by making a wrong turn heading to Herkimer County even though I've driven there dozens of times.
I took the rig position once we hit I-87, Essex County, around 6 pm. I made about dozen nice QSOs and then dead, nothing, nada. 40 meters was done and we had no low bands. For the next 2 hours I just kept sending CQ and would log a Q about every 10-15 minutes. In Clinton County I believe our Q count was 3! In Franklin County Redd took back the station and he was able to work a few folks all the way to his QTH.
I can't believe we made a complete broad circle around K2NNY and never worked him.
In retrospect there are a lot of things I could have done better. Redd's XYL, Susan made a big container of cookies for our trip. We cannot improve on that and only hope that she started a wonderful NYQP tradition!"
AI2N: My most vivid memory is that of Dave driving like a madman up and down the winding, bumpy roads in the early part of the trip. I had the laptop on a board on my lap in the back seat and it was sliding all over the place.
N2CU (ny)
I had been thinking about restarting the NYQP for a number of years but never had the time or resources to devote to making it a good party. When the RDXA announced it was going to do it, I was ecstatic. One of my favorite Ham activities is operating QSO parties, so I made plans to set aside this weekend for the first NYQP in over 25 years. I would have loved to operate mobile but I don't have a mobile setup. So, fixed operation from home would have to do.
My strategy for QSO parties is to change bands and modes a lot, catching as many mobiles in different counties as possible. This usually means operating low power so there's no amplifier retuning needed. I felt that there would not be as many mobiles out there compared to established QSO parties, so to maximize my score I operated high power. After sweeping the CW portion of a band for mobiles I would call CQ for a short period then switch to SSB and repeat the process, Because the rules allow digital QSOs with the same station worked on CW, I would also make some CQs on RTTY and PSK31. At three points per QSO, digital modes are a great way to boost your score. Keep repeating this on each band and you'll have success too.
Expected more activity from out-of-state participants. Where were all the guys I normally work in THEIR QSO parties? Too many other things going on I guess -IAQP, WAG, JARTS, Stew Perry, K4M...Worked 44 of 62 NY counties and 53 of 59 states and provinces. Thanks to all for the QSOs.
I have to give thanks to the RDXA for taking up the reins and getting the NYQP going again. It's no small task and they did a great job. I look forward to doing it all again next October.
73, Tom N2CU
W2RU/W2BC (ny)
Put in a few CW-only hours from the home QTH in Old Forge, Herkimer County, under my own call, W2RU, before throwing the TS-480 and laptop in the car, setting up the contest logging program on the laptop, and driving three miles to Fern Park in Inlet, Hamilton County, where I made a handful of CW contacts on 20 and 40 under the club call, W2BC.
Had planned on then driving to a public site in Lewis County to do the same, but when I looked at the travel times involved for the small number of QSOs I was likely to log and the fun I would probably have trying to explain to the local police why I was sitting in a parked car in the dark of night, I decided to go back home instead and finish up from there.
Surprised at how scarce many of the "ordinary" counties were on CW, but in-state turnout not bad for the first year the NYQP has run in over a decade. Congrats to the gang who took it over!
Strongly suggest returning to a summer weekend -- less competition from other contests, and easier to get the rare Adirondack & Catskills counties on the air.
Bud, W2RU
W2PV/M (NJ1F, K2XA) (ny)
First, a Big Thank You to the Rochester DX Association and everyone who got on the air to revive this QSO party! We also would like to thank the Yankee Clipper Contest Club for allowing us to use the W2PV call sign and George, K2ONP, for handling the QSLs.
The idea for our operation came about during a drive in the NJ1F mobile to the K1TTT annual summer picnic and open house in July. Saul, K2XA, and I talked about the various mobile HF contests that I had operated, and the challenge of working stations while in motion at highway speeds with 100 watts into a very small and relatively inefficient antenna. I recounted the thrill of working CU2JT and other Europeans on 20, 40 and 80 cw with a 4-foot antenna! We were eager to see how well we could do in the NY QSO party. We also relished the fact that every time we entered a new county we would be “fresh meat” and probably a new multiplier for those following us.
For those who have never operated a contest as a mobile, I encourage you to give it a try. It’s not like the home station low or high power categories where, if you have a dipole or long wire antenna, you are competing with stations that who might have stacks of yagis. You will be competing with other mobile stations who face the same challenges, such as how to get the most out of a compromise antenna, and how to power everything while on the go. For the most part, mobile stations have the same power and antenna gain (negative gain!) so it really comes down to the operator and how many times Mr. Murphy visits during the contest.
The W2PV mobile station at the time was a 2004 Buick Lesabre with a Mini Tarheal antenna and Icom IC-706MKIIG. The Mini Tarheal with an interface and control unit allows for very fast band changes without having to stop. For logging and keying we used N1MM. One other thing that you need for extended operating with a laptop is a way to power it with the vehicle’s DC supply. I have an inverter which servers this purpose.
We planned our route during a phone call about a week before the contest. Having done the New England QSO Party for several years, I have an excel spreadsheet that was given to me by Tom, K1KI, that I use for planning the times, distances and duration that we would be in each county. We also used the information on the NYQP website to select counties that had very low populations of hams or were listed by the county hunters as “rare.”
Contest day Saul and I got off to a slightly later start due other commitments. While driving to our “planned” starting point we realized that the contest was going to start before we arrived, so we discussed changing the routing so that instead of “doubling up” on the time spent in a couple of counties we would activate additional counties. A map of the state having the county outlines on it is a must have. We quickly plotted a new route. I did all the driving and Saul did the majority of the operating--I got on when we stopped for breaks and also helped with copying through the noise.
We got off to a pretty good start on 20 CW as the band was in great shape. However, it didn’t last as long as we would have liked. Eventually we went to 40 meters, which was productive until it went really long and all we heard were Europeans working each other in another contest. There was also an RTTY contest going on which made it nearly impossible to use the suggested NYQP frequencies. We tried 80 meters but it was also very long early, but shortened up after 2 Z until the end of the contest. Late at night there were a couple of counties in which we actually stopped and looked for stations to work so we could have at least a few QSOs in them.
We had planned on doing a mixed mode entry but because of an issue with the laptop usb port we quickly dashed the thought of RTTY. Also, with the band conditions relatively poor we found that there were few stations on SSB, and no one heard us, so we stayed exclusively with CW because each contact was worth twice and much as SSB, and it was really the mode that we could make the most QSOs.
We did have Murphy visit our operation. We got a late start operating because the USB port on the laptop that I had the rig interface setup for was acting up, which meant that we had to fool around and set up the software to work with one of the other USB ports. We had a Windows lockup that gave us the blue screen of death, and we had some RF getting into the rig interface that caused issues. Of course, there were the other typical mobile issues such as ignition noise, inverter RF hash, and man made noise from overhead wires and lights.
Some suggestions to improve the NY QSO Party would be to change the times of the contest to favor propagation on the higher bands where mobile antennas are more effective, such as earlier in the morning. The really late night operating (after 10 pm local) had relatively few participants, and propagation is often questionable. Many of the other state QSO parties break the operating times into two parts like 2 pm local until 8 or 9 pm then on again at 9 am until 4 pm. This makes the contest across two days. Another way to accomplish this is what the FLQP folks do make the contest a 40 meter and above contest. One other suggestion is to have a couple of kHZ designated for mobiles only to encourage more mobiles to get on and to have a place for those following them around the counties to look.
Finally, the scoring for mobiles should be changed to add together all the multipliers worked from each county, rather than counting a multiplier only once. This would provide a significant incentive to move to another county to get more mulipliers, and rewards the mobile for the added effort.
In summary, we started driving at 12:30pm time local and finished at 2 am local, traveling about 600 miles and activating 21 counties. We made 212 QSOs in 50 multipliers. We had a great time operating and are looking forward to doing even better in the 2010 NYQP.
Brian, NJ1F and Saul, K2XA