2013 Michigan QSO Party
Soapbox
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2013 Michigan QSO Party Soapbox |
Good conditions, worked many rare counties -
AC8JF My best QSO party from the DX
side ever. Special thanks to the mobile stations, they keep the contest fun
throughout the full 12 hours -
DL2HBX Always fun to make contact with my old home
state, see you again next year - KØRJW
Looking forward to next year. Thanks to all participants -
KØTC Too bad the bands sucked out here -
K5ZG Conditions for MIQP 2013 were
amazing! Best rate I've managed for a any State QSO party! It probably was a
good part due to KD8HNF's remote site at a high location with a hex beam for 20
thru 10 and a G5RV for 80 & 40. Of course, being the only fixed station in IONIa
county was a BIG help! Thanks to Bob, KD8HNF for the loan of the site! And
thanks to the organizers of MIQP - K6JSS (op. N8XX)
Our brief, part-time trip to activate three "unspoken for"
counties started out well with eight QSOs in eight minutes from Alpena County,
but then only two more in the next forty minutes. Felt weak on 40M, couldn't get
anything going on 20M. Running my usual HamStick setup, but for the first
time on this particular vehicle. Believed to have a grounding problem -
K8CC/m Good weather, good
conditions, good activity - K8IR/m
Fun as usual. Couldn't get my laptop logging program to talk to the radio
properly. Didn't hear Macomb County at all - K8IY
After our brief mobile trip during the day, and attending my niece's birthday
party, I finished MiQP with a brief operating stint from home. Every wire
antenna I had was broken, so no 80M and only a yagi fixed west for 40M -
K8MQP (op. K8CC) My heavy power-line
noise slowed things down, especially with the mobile signals. Conditions pretty
good overall, I'd say perhaps a few less stations than last year, but still
plenty to QSO. I wish more would QSY to 75/80M earlier for us close-in stations.
MiQP a FB contest - K8RYU MiQP
portable QTH in Sanilac County - K8UO
Thanks for hosting the contest - KC0RNI
First time running QRP. I was amazed how many calls I could make. The
serial numbers got a little mixed up at one point. Glad I kept a paper log as
well - KG8JK There were many
Michigan station on the bands which made the contest a lot of fun during the
hour I was able to operate. Condx weren't that great as 40M was pretty long.
Many thanks to the participants and organizers -
KK4CIS Got home from the city bowling tournament and
operated CW the last few hours. I had a ball, even stayed up past my usual
bedtime - KN4Y Love the one day
format. Wish we could have found stations on the other bands -
KU8K My fifth Michigan QSO Party -
N1NN Another fun 12 hours in the
MiQP. Thanks to the sponsor and all the great activity - fixed and mobile.
The QSO leader for me was Jim/K8MR with 55 QSOs...I look forward to this one
every year - N4PN I enjoyed the
contest with decent propagation. Hope to improve my county total next year
- N7QMT We had three stations
operating from the Port Crescent State Park camping area near Port Austin in
Huron County - N8LC WOW -
another great contest. I only had one computer crash that cost me 20
minutes. Forgot to turn in my log by the deadline last year - but not this
year! Thanks to all the portables and mobiles - N8TC
This was a great trip and contest. We had fresh snowfall at the start, which the
sun quickly too care of. 40 was great to work MI stations. Didn't hold
frequencies long on a run and had good luck searching and pouncing. I saw one
other mobile rover at the Luce/Chippewa county line and had a nice chat with
them. I would have liked to work more counties, but for my first real attempt at
MiQP as a mobile entry, I'm very happy with the trip. Solo trip, 280 miles, 167
contacts, 52 multipliers, 3 DX, one tank of = one awesome trip -
N8YP/m I could only work this one for
a limited time, but had fun anyway. See you all next year -
ND3R Thanks for hearing my QRP
station. Lots of fun - NQ2W It
was a hard decision, but I had to make a choice which one of four QSO parties on
the same weekend I would "sacrifice". At last I decided to operate MiQP. I have
not confirmed MI only 8 counties, while I am missing many counties from ND, SD
AND NE. Of course I could not resist making some QSOs in MiQP. I missed
many MI counties as I was searching or made QSOs with mobile stations from ND,
SD, NE - I made 96 QSOs with those states!
SD QSO Party: 37 QSO / 28 counties
ND QSO Party: 40 QSO / 23 counties
NE QSO Party: 19 QSO / 10 counties
but:
MI QSO Party: 220 QSO / 69 counties
Congratulations to DL2HBX for a nice result and a new record. Next year I
will not deal with the ND, SD, and NE QSO parties to work MiQP hard and regain
my record.
TOP MOBILES (QSO/CTY):
K8MR/m 45/25
K8IR/m 14/10
NE9U/m 8/7
W8CAR/m 8/7
W8ZZ/p 4/2
Thanks for the QSOs - 73, OM2VL
Tnx for the nice event -
PG2AA Rig: FT-2000, Power: 100 W;
Antenna: DX-77A VERTICAL UP 70 M - RG5A
Lots happening this weekend. Still found a few Mich stations. Thanks.
Rig was FTDX5000 (100W) and Butternut HF6V all-band vertical -
W1END Last year our final QSO was
with W8CT. This year he was our first QSO - W8AWE
This was the first year that our newly branded club, Northern Lights (formerly
the NOOBZ CONTEST CLUB) has truly started to become very active. A lot of
excitement led up to Northern Lights taking part in MiQP. We are an
Elmer-based group that has a focus for bringing Technician licensees to discover
other adventures that ham radio has to offer. Because of this we had a mix
of experience and novice when we came together fore our club's first multi-multi
endeavor. For this reason, we had a speed bump at the start of the contest as we
had kinks to work out. At start time, we were still hanging antennas and working
out the glitches in the networking behavior of our logging software. We
also lost one laptop plus a spare so we had to take one of our three planned
transmitters off line. Throughout the contest, we continued to fight
logger connectivity issues which caused us lost contact, RF getting into mic
lines and local receiver RF overload problems. Still, this was a highlight
event for our group and everyone is already talking about how to do it better
next time. It seems our mission was accomplished - 73 and we'll see you in
the next contest - W8CMN Great
time as always. Conditions were great! My score continues to improve. CU in 2014
- W8CUB (op. WB2REI) Great
contest - W8DW Just had over an
hour mobile to operate but at least I made a showing -
W8FSM Lots of set up on Friday paid
off at noon on Saturday as we started on time without any logging software woes!
We had five stations (2 each CW/phone and one spare floater) all under 100W to
three G5RV dipoles, a G5RV Jr. dipole, a 20M vertical and an 80-10 dipole. The
mid-to-late afternoon lull had us wondering if we had lost antennas or
receivers! Band-pass filters helped with inter-band receiver de-sense and
antenna separation let us run concurrent phone and CW stations on 40M the entire
contest. Thanks to all the mobiles for the rare ones and to everyone else for
stopping by and giving us QSOs. Nice to work you all. 73 -
W8OAK Multi-Op, 100W, three stations, voice only -
W8QN Most of this was QRP, but I
inadvertently made a few QSOs over 5W so submitted as low power -
W8UE I gave out my QSO number 12
twice by mistake. Operating remote from Tokyo -
WA6URY My second time in the contest.
I had a good time. I tried to improve my score by working more CW and taking
fewer breaks. I accidentally skipped numbers 46 and 192-197 by mistake. I lost
power for several minutes so was forced to take a break for 18 minutes, which I
utilized to eat dinner. Band changes went pretty to very fast. 80M was dead
until evening - WA8Y Just
dipoles, but had fun. Tnx for sponsoring - WB7CYO