DELARA Members out and about!

It was a busy month for DELARA! Ed spent time searching out the skies (see “Club News”) while Jamie spent time working the “Parks On The Air” operating event. And for many other club members, it was the Ohio QSO Party that drew their attention. Here are some random reports and scores! Mark Rader wrote: First contest ever for me. Many unknowns. CW only. (Search and pounce only; no calling CQ, no skimmer, no RBN nodes, etc.; only waterfall on Icom 7300) Barely got N1MM running (manual mode) in time or I was going to make paper logs. "100W and a wire" (I thought this was like golf and low scores wins:)) Worked several of you(s). Very fun and addicting. Mark N8FTB OH QSOPARTY Summary Sheet Start Date : 2019-08-24 CallSign Used : N8FTB Operator(s) : N8FTB Operator Category : SINGLE-OP Band : ALL Power : LOW Mode : CW Default Exchange : DELA Gridsquare : EN80MD ARRL Section : OH Club/Team : Delaware Amateur Radio Association Software : N1MM Logger+ 1.0.7907.0 Band QSOs Pts Mul Pt/Q 3.5 30 60 22 2.0 7 3 6 1 2.0 14 2 4 1 2.0 Total 35 70 24 2.0 Score : 1,680 Wow! Over about 7.5 hours butt-in-seat I scored just 20,007 points with 250ish QSOs (phone only). Working mixed (CW + phone) and getting all those additional multipliers is the key to scoring high. Nice work, Joe. We put up a vertical w/ 80, 40m, and 20m elements and the hex beam with only the 20m element on it. We worked a few stations on 80m to start and that was slow, then switched to 40m and worked the Eastern and Midwest portion of the country, switched to 20m late afternoon and got many of the middle Western states, went back to 40m, went back to 80m before dinner, worked 20m into West Coast and Hawaii after dinner, then collected our 80m county mults from 6:30- 8:00p. It took all that to get just 20k points working SSB. It's fun, but there's no chance I'll come close to winning. I didn't bother to check 10m or 15m. Maybe I should have for some addition mults. The weather was fantastic for camping this weekend. I did some DXing Thursday and Friday nights and and logged some nice portable DX, including some ATNOs for me: India on 40m (I still don't know how that happened), Switzerland, Sweden, and Argentina. Russia and Eastern Europe was coming in well on 20m on Friday, even with a spotless sun. - Ed Jones - K8MEJ - Lewis Center, Ohio U.S.A Great job everyone! Ohio QSO Party - 2019 Call: K8BTU Operator(s): K8BTU Station: K8BTU Class: Single Op LP QTH: Lewis Center, OH Operating Time (hrs): 12 Summary: Band CW Qs Ph Qs -------------------- 80: 180 40: 119 20: 62 15: 2 10: 1 -------------------- Total: 364 0 CW Mults = 99 Ph Mults = 0 Total Score = 72,072 Club: Delaware Amateur Radio Association Comments: CW only event at my location. 10m-40m dipole in attic up about 16 feet. Temporary (for the QSo Party) 80m dipole (in a somewhat "V" formation due to space) in backyard up about 12 feet. I tried running on 15 meters but that band was so dead that no RBN nodes heard me. 20 meters was not much better. 40 meters was surprisingly not as active as I hoped. Most of my mults came on 80 meters. Worked some new counties that I have not heard in the past. Local ops who I recognized: Tom, N4HAI; Joe, K8MP, Tom, KV8Q; Vic, K1LT; Bob, W8ERD and Bob, W3HKK. Worked several other Franklin county ops whom I do not know. Puter decided to have keying problems and a fan died so there were a few equipment issues. Time on the radio was very scattered. Worked several 1x1 from Kansas. I would run out of stations answering me and go to S&P and work the same 1x1 ops again and give them an “OH”. They did not respond with “IO”. Maybe I should put “THE” in my exchange. Score was drastically lower than past efforts. I clearly do not hear very well and an erratic schedule does not help. Jim, K8MR, would like everybody to post their scores to 3830Scores.com. Please send in your log to the OHQP web site. OH QSOPARTY Summary Sheet Start Date : 2019-08-24 CallSign Used : AA8TA Operator Category : SINGLE-OP Band : ALL Power : LOW Mode : CW Default Exchange : FRAN Gridsquare : EN80NB ARRL Section : OH Club/Team : Delaware Amateur Radio Association Software : N1MM Logger+ 1.0.7907.0 Band QSOs Pts Mul Pt/Q 3.5 58 116 26 2.0 7 56 112 20 2.0 14 12 24 7 2.0 Total 126 252 53 2.0 Score : 13,356 I operated about 10 hours. Things seemed slow overall but when all was said and done, I ended up with a decent score. I worked many Delara members, some multiple times. I'm not going to try and recall everyone because I'm sure I'd leave someone out. I missed a few states but I did get AK and HI on 20 CW and HI on 20 SSB. I missed a bunch of counties but that's typical for me because I call CQ more than I chase multipliers. Even so, 189 mults is purty good! 2019 OHIO QSO PARTY Call used: K8MP Location: DELA Category: Single-Op Mode: MIXED Power: High Callsign of Operator(s): K8MP Exchanged Information: K8MP RST DELA band CW QSOs CW pts Ph QSOs Ph pts --------------------------------------------------------------------- 80 156 312 90 90 40 104 208 91 91 20 82 164 75 75 15 1 2 0 0 10 1 2 0 0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 344 688 256 256 ( 944 ) QSO points X ( 189 ) Multipliers = 178,416 points Club or Team Name: Delara Amateur Radio Assn I operated from home for about 5.5 hours. Had a good time. Glad to hear the club operation went well. Sounds like they had enough operators. Like Jamie, my butt also gets tired after a few hours. I was never on 10M, so I think Shawn heard me on 80M. I had a few handicaps. For some unknown reason, N1MM would not key my radio, so all the CW had to be sent manually, with some mistakes here and there. N1MM insists I did not set the CW port, but I did. Suggestions? My radio is 200W max, so that is what I ran. Did not turn on the amp. So I am in the “High Power” category (above 100 W) competing with all the KW stations. My open wire feedline is up against a metal ladder, as my antenna project is not quite finished yet. But I was able to tune it OK. That makes it really “ladder line” :) Here is my scoring summary, as generated by N1MM: OH QSOPARTY Summary Sheet Start Date : 2019-08-24 CallSign Used : W8ERD Operator(s) : W8ERD Operator Category : SINGLE-OP Band : ALL Power : HIGH Mode : MIXED Default Exchange : DELA Gridsquare : EN80KG Name : Bob Dixon Address : 2175 Klondike RD City/State/Zip : Delaware OH 43015 Country : UNITED STATES ARRL Section : OH Club/Team : Delaware Amateur Radio Association Software : N1MM Logger+ 1.0.7907.0 Band Mode QSOs Pts Mul Pt/Q 3.5 CW 87 174 38 2.0 3.5 LSB 26 26 20 1.0 7 CW 30 58 16 1.9 7 LSB 4 4 3 1.0 14 CW 14 28 7 2.0 14 USB 5 5 4 1.0 Total Both 166 295 88 1.8 Score : 25,960 My eyeballs hurt , my ears hurt, my back hurts, my thumb hurts from keying mic, my left arm hurts from hitting the enter tab on keyboard, my butt hurts from sittin in the control seat, my larynx hurts from say 'Ohio QSO Party' . I think the only thing that doesn't hurt .... my left big toe. I went from being nervous to ' I will hunt you down no matter where you are.' Other than that, this experience was fun. Even more so that Field Day ... Jamie, AD8EC