This was another weekend in which I couldn't devote full time due to having to take advantage of a rare break in our rainy weather for outside work. Net results were completely different from last year. ND was a total FAIL last year, this year I heard a couple Sunday morning. (Thank you, radio gods). Last year NM was just a couple stations, this year they were all over the bands. Having to leave early Sunday meant my GA totals were way down from last year.

GA Q's were in abundance this weekend. ND and NM not so much. I was concerned about qualifying for ND, as I only heard (2) Calls from ND. Worked them both but kudos to AI0Y as he was the only call except for K0AJW, that I work on 40, 20, and 15! AI0Y was heard throughout the weekend. Next week I will be on a hiking trip in the Catskills NY from Friday to Monday. So I will miss those valuable multipliers. Have fun, everyone. Catch you on the next QSO Party weekend.

I worked the GA, ND and NW Qps this weekend, but only made one CW contact each in ND and NM. I just didn't find any other stations in those states. Not sure why. I heard many more GA stations. I submitted my logs and posted my scores to boost the number of NAQCC participants, but remember there is a minimum of 2 contacts each for QP Challenge credit.

As always, living in Ga., the GA QSO Party is a lot of fun. I have gone QRPp for all of my contesting and even operating in general most of the time ,but I have always used 5W in the past for this contest. I couldn't decide whether to use 500mw or 1 watt , but decided to go with 1w really not knowing what to expect. I ran the entire contest except for about 15 contacts. The first hour was totally amazing to me for 1w and I logged 61 contacts during that hour with 26 of them in the first 10 minutes! Either the first or second contact spotted me and it was pretty wild for 1w! This was on a 30,20 and 15m fan dipole at about 30 feet on 20m.
Looking at the solar numbers, I really thought I would make a lot of contacts on 15 and 10 m. SFI was around 160 both days. K index was 1-2 and the A index stayed low. When both of those bands get shorter during the middle of the day , I thought I would mop up, especially on 10 m out west , but it was not to be! I think I made less than 10 contacts on both bands for the entire contest. Another local ham with better antennas than I had the same experience. I don't know if both bands were extremely long or what?
I quit about one hour before the party ended on Saturday night with 288 q's and I thought I should be able to surpass 400 q's , but I was wrong! It was very slow for me on Sunday and because of that I really didn't operate that much . It was hard to keep my butt in the chair so I would operate for a while, do other things and finally try again. I only made 67 contacts on Sunday.
I hope everyone is having fun participating in all the great QSO Parties this year!!
Rig was an Icom 705 with a LP-100A Digital Vector RF Wattmeter to make sure my power setting was accurate! A 40m doublet, 20m doublet and the fan dipole!

NM, ND, GA: I started the weekend with high SWR on my antenna but was able to track it down to a broken feedline wire at the balun. I was worried about qualifying in the ND contest because last year I only heard one station. This year, however, there were two very active stations on CW. I wasn't able to hear nor work any NM stations until the last hour of the contest when the bands finally cooperated with better propagation and a bit less QRN. GA was much more active than ND and NM. A couple roaming stations provided many welcome multipliers.

GAQP - Lots of activity when I sat down at the radio. The mobiles had some big pile-ups on them. Some I could break, some I couldn't.
NDQP - Only heard AI0Y and K0AJW. I'm happy they tried multiple bands and they could hear me when I called.
NMQP - The mobiles did a really great job. They accounted for more than half of my QSOs!

My favourite "catch" of the SQPs this weekend was working Alan KR4AE in the GAQP. It's always fun to hear, and work, a fellow NAQCCer! And to learn later that he was operating QRPp 1 watt. Amazing! The 2nd favourite event for me was catching two ND stations in the evening, after not hearing a peep from ND when I was on the air in the afternoon.

Happy not to get skunked again on ND. Looks like many ops were able to at least get the multiplier this year, so a big improvement all around. NM was also improved. Just like with VA, I could have used some more evening time in the shack to put up a decent GA score as it's too close for 20m, particularly with the bands long.

We finally had a break in the lousy weather around here so had to divert away from radios to do yard work. My QSO count in all three parties was lower than last year, significantly lower for Missouri. Band conditions were not exactly stellar.

MSQP - Heard 9 stations, only worked 8. One on 80m couldn't hear me. The spotting page was sporadic for me. It seems like that spotting page for the QSO Parties doesn't work well for me. After actually turning the VFO, I often resort to RBN and DX Summit to find stations.
MOQP - Lots of activity. The mobiles did a great job hearing me. About one-quarter of my QSOs were with stations on county lines. Those contacts add up fast.
LAQP - Heard 2 stations, worked 2 stations. Never saw any others spotted using the technique mentioned earlier.

It seemed that prep for viewing the solar eclipse totality on Monday dominated my weekend. A granddaughter flew in for that occasion, so entertaining her took priority. I did sneak in a bit of radio time, got my multiplier in two parties, but was one Q shy for the LAQP. I generally check DXWatch for which stations might be on, but I'm looking to expand my repertoire of tricks.

LA was tough going and it was a relief to finally land the 2nd. MS stations were reasonably well represented, but MO was everywhere. I could have run up a much better score with more time in the shack.

VAQP - Not a lot of time during the second day. I liked the later op time Saturday evening local time for 80m QSOs. Mobiles did a great job copying my station. Serial numbers added some challenge to the exchange. 73, Will, NQ2W

Managed to double my QSO count from last year. But it took a lot of BIC (butt in chair) time, and I had to give up a couple hockey games to do it. Anything for science!

I considered running up to VA for this one, but it's a long drive and I had too much going on. Beat last year's 52 by 2. If they'd have kept it going another hour or two I might have doubled that, as the real action for me was on 40 and 80m in the evenings and a good chunk of my Sunday Qs were when I was able to get back to the shack for the final 15 minutes of the event.

Since I am in NNJ, 40 Meters was only the band for me. I occasionally went to 80 Meters but heard nothing there. Unfortunately having only one band to work, once you have worked those stations, that's it. Many stations parked themselves on 40 and did not move.
I did notice there were several Virginia stations moving from county to county. I did not work them again as I used the common rule of work once per band.

OK and ID were difficult to reach from NJ.

Idaho becomes the first contest this year that I had fewer QSOs than last year, 9 vs. 10. But otherwise I am well ahead of last year's QSO count. Love those sunspots.

This was a tough weekend for me. Storms rolled through on Saturday with some lightning close by for a while so that was lost time. Also, ID gave me a lot of problems. All of the ID stations I heard on my vertical were just above the noise and most with pileups. I did outlast pileups a couple of times to make the required two contacts. One thing for sure is that hunting for contacts at QRP power levels is teaching me patience. It also makes the victories pretty sweet!

OKQP - Like most QPs I was in and out of the shack when I had a few minutes. Lots of OK participants. The mobiles did a great job!
IDQP - More than doubled my QSO count from last year. Worked 3 of the 4 bonus stations. Never heard a dit or a dah from K7P.
WIQP - Seemed like good participation from WI folks. Mobiles did an awesome job!

Conditions on 20m were challenging here, which made ID especially difficult. 10m was much better and provided most of my ID QSOs. OK was about the same as last year, but my WI count was way down. Fortunately 40m to WI picked up in the late afternoon. There seemed to be more big pileups than usual, and patience was definitely a virtue.

I worked all three SQP's. I didn't work too many stations from Idaho. But OK, & WI was very active at my QTH. It was a challenge to differentiate each state with my desktop logger.
Looking forward to the VA QP this weekend, and making a move up from my current ranking.

It was "casual" operating for me this weekend. But the thrill was working ID--3000 km from my QTH--on three bands, 15, 20, and 40. The magic of working stations at that distance at QRP power to a low dipole never ceases to amaze and thrill me.

I wasn't getting ID until I tweaked the RBN settings and chased them that way. Didn't get much radio time after making sure I had my multipliers, but WI stations were plentiful any time I spun the dial. Finally sat down Sunday evening and made half my QSOs in the last 30 minutes of the WI Party.