Stories about Party
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Email from Harry, KA3NZR and Pete, WG2J dated 11 Aug 11.
********************
Date: 27 April 2011
Date: 7 Apr 11
Subject: Williamsburg Area Amateur Radio Club (K4RC) at VA QSO Party
I thought I'd share a few photos of our activities this past weekend during the VA-QSO Party. My club setup a station at our Field Day site in James City county, near Toano, VA (about 12 miles from Williamsburg). The site is on the Chicahominy River which enters into the James River about 30 miles west of Hampton Roads and Norfolk. There are two nice picnic shelters on the property and we use them both for FD. For this even, we chose the one up on the hill and it gave us a nice location for the mast and a 135 foot doublet antenna configured as an Inverted "V".
My K3/P3 was setup under the shelter on the table and we used AC power and my Astron PS. Photo "John_K3_10248" shows the K3/P3 on the table. It also shows the bottom corner of the Acer monitor we placed on the radio to provide a view of the log as the data was entered by the logger at the end of the table (we were carful not to block the vents for the KPA3). The hand in the foreground belongs to John, AI4QQ, one of our operators.
Photo "Ed_Chuck-10181" shows the radio on the table and Ed K1NUH logging and Chuck AI4WU on the mic. The little blue box under Chuck's right hand is my home made PTT switch made from some surplus relay contacts and thin model aircraft plywood. I find this more convenient for portable operations then the usual footswitch.
Ed, and Chuck appear again in photo "Ed_Chuck-10231" which shows the radio/P3 with monitor on top from a getter perspective. With this arrangement, the operator no longer has to strain to see the 'exchange' infor or call sign while operating, it's right in front of him.
Picture "George10259" illustrates the fact that if you want to do something bad enough, you can do most anything. George K4GAM is a disabled VET. He has limited use of his legs a numerous other problems as a result of his service in the ARMY in Vietnam. But he got his Technician and General tickets and comes out to most of our club special events as well as other portable operations. To his left you can see the seat-back of his "Jazzy" and just over his right shoulder, is the ball on the control stick. "Jazzy" George is real handy when up-packing the car for these events, just pile it on his lap, and off he goes.
Well, we had a great time and made a lot of contacts. This is the first time the club has made an effort for the QSO party, but I don't think it will be the last. By the way, from the coats and glover you might guess it's not Spring weather here, yet.
I don't know if you can use any of this in your scrapbook, but I thought you might like to see the equipment in use.
Thanks again for all you do.
...bill nr4c (president WAARC)
********************
Date: 6 Apr 11
From: John, W4AU
This year was the first time that I had entered as CW only in the VAQP. Boy, things are a lot slower on CW in this QP compared to working mixed with SSB, and it's easy to miss many of the VA multipliers that are only heard on fone. But I certainly didn't miss the deliberate interference on 75 SSB that has plagued us in the past. Things were very difficult Saturday evening on 40 CW, though, because the folks in the BARTG RTTY contest completely dominated the lower half of 40 meters.
One thing that helped me stay in the chair was operating SO2R, and during slow times I could even alternately CQ on two bands to try and keep the rate up. I found 20 especially productive on Sunday morning and afternoon working both the western U.S. and Europe; sometimes I didn't know which way to point the beam! Also, my 191' Extended double Zepp worked great on 40 as it is oriented to work both east and west.
I was pleasantly surprised on Sunday morning when my score passed the existing HP CW record for the VAQP; it was a big lift and kept me working as hard as possible for the rest of the time. I hope that my score holds up as there were a lot of good CW ops on the air this weekend.
Thanks for all the Q's, especially for those folks who got on Sunday just to hand out a few numbers.
Rigs:
K3 & P3 -> Alpha 78
Orion -> Drake L-4B
Ants:
KT-34A @ 50'
Extended Double Zepp for 40 @ 45'
Dipole for 80 @ 50
Inverted L for 160
73 - John, W4AU
********************
QSL card from Kay Craigie, N3KN (Virginia resident and President, ARRL). Front side, Back side
********************
On, 3/24/2011 12:07 PM, [email protected] emailed::
We had a successful operation with a net 1008 QSOs (223 CW and 785 SSB) and claimed score of 203,987. I added a "/CTY" to a few of the mobile and portable stations to eliminate dupes. Eleven operators have been indicated in the cabrillo file: Bill, WF1L; Gordon, NQ4K; Kevin, W4KLS; Jim, KF4PQL; Don, K7CS; Dick, W2YE; Kevin,WB0POH; John, N3QT; Jim, AF4MO; Ray, KD4RSL; and Eric, AJ4LN. In addition we had Paul, K4PDF, and Bud, W4KSN, as visitors.
Dick's, W2YE, station operating as K4NVA. (Don, K7CS, operating at CW station. Phone station on right).
Close-Up on Phone Station
Close-Up on CW Station with Don, K7CS, operating.
Jim, AF4MO, operating at Phone Station.
Dick, W2YE, the host for K4NVA.
John, N3QT, one of the operators.
(Photos by Kevin, K4KLS and Gordon, NQ4K.)
********************
Date: 30 March 2011 5:22 PM
From: Jeremy, KF7IJZ
Date: 28 Jan 11
25 Mar 11
Gordon,
That fellow who spoke about NVIS predictions was spot on when you look at our graph of QSOs by band over time.
John , KX4O
Member of Faquier Amateur Radio Association (FARA)
********************
Note: Bernie, KJ4VOV, and Larry, AK4FB (members of the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association) operated mobile from 7 counties (SPO, CLN, STA, FBX, ORG, CUL, and FAU.
I didn't get a chance to take many photos during the party, but here's three shots of our mobile attempting 2m SSB contacts from Caroline county. Maybe you can use them for your website. KJ4VOV_1.JPG, KJ4VOV_2.JPG, KJ4VOV_3.JPG.
(Did not make a single 2m SSB contact from anywhere)
Bernie - KJ4VOV
********************
Email from Harry, KA3NZR and Pete, WG2J dated 11 Aug 11.
Kevin, (i.e., Kevin Stuart, W4KLS)
please forgive me bad manners for not sending you a note earlier than this...
thank you very much for sponsoring the High VA Mobile Multiple Operator plaque for the SPARC and VA QSO Party.
it was a great honor for my partner, pete michel, WG2J, and me to win. pete and i started in franklin county, drove
to up and along the blue ridge partway from carroll back to roanoke city and then caught the other counties the
next day. we used a ten tec scout, to three hustler resonators on a mast located behind my pickup truck's cab.
i hope pete and i can do as well next year. pete and i operated using the franklin county amateur radio club call
sign of W4FCR.
one humorous except - i can't remember which county we were in, perhaps patrick, but there wasn't any parking
except at the head of farm driveways. pete was logging and i was concentrating on my CW. pete said something
to me which i didn't catch. when i looked up he had a funny look on his face as was pointing towards the road
lo and behold the farmer was in his car patiently waiting for me to move my truck so he could get to his
house! ;->>>>> thanks again, all the best to you and yours.
-----
Gordon, (i.e., Gordon, NQ4K, Chair, Virginia QSO Party)
we appreciate what you and sparc do for amateur radio in virginia. i'm not sure how many years i have participated
in the va qso party but it has been fun every year. i hope pete and i can be as competitive next year.
cheers and 73,
harry weiss (ka3nzr) and pete michel (wg2j) franklin county
********************
Date: 27 April 2011
Tnx for the update Gordon.********************
By the way I've updated the FARA web site with some highlights from
some of our members if you care to add to the Post-contest link or
soapbox section of the K4NVA VaQP 2011 site.
http://www.w4va.org/?p=994
73
andyz - K1RA
Date: 7 Apr 11
Subject: Williamsburg Area Amateur Radio Club (K4RC) at VA QSO Party
I thought I'd share a few photos of our activities this past weekend during the VA-QSO Party. My club setup a station at our Field Day site in James City county, near Toano, VA (about 12 miles from Williamsburg). The site is on the Chicahominy River which enters into the James River about 30 miles west of Hampton Roads and Norfolk. There are two nice picnic shelters on the property and we use them both for FD. For this even, we chose the one up on the hill and it gave us a nice location for the mast and a 135 foot doublet antenna configured as an Inverted "V".
My K3/P3 was setup under the shelter on the table and we used AC power and my Astron PS. Photo "John_K3_10248" shows the K3/P3 on the table. It also shows the bottom corner of the Acer monitor we placed on the radio to provide a view of the log as the data was entered by the logger at the end of the table (we were carful not to block the vents for the KPA3). The hand in the foreground belongs to John, AI4QQ, one of our operators.
Photo "Ed_Chuck-10181" shows the radio on the table and Ed K1NUH logging and Chuck AI4WU on the mic. The little blue box under Chuck's right hand is my home made PTT switch made from some surplus relay contacts and thin model aircraft plywood. I find this more convenient for portable operations then the usual footswitch.
Ed, and Chuck appear again in photo "Ed_Chuck-10231" which shows the radio/P3 with monitor on top from a getter perspective. With this arrangement, the operator no longer has to strain to see the 'exchange' infor or call sign while operating, it's right in front of him.
Picture "George10259" illustrates the fact that if you want to do something bad enough, you can do most anything. George K4GAM is a disabled VET. He has limited use of his legs a numerous other problems as a result of his service in the ARMY in Vietnam. But he got his Technician and General tickets and comes out to most of our club special events as well as other portable operations. To his left you can see the seat-back of his "Jazzy" and just over his right shoulder, is the ball on the control stick. "Jazzy" George is real handy when up-packing the car for these events, just pile it on his lap, and off he goes.
Well, we had a great time and made a lot of contacts. This is the first time the club has made an effort for the QSO party, but I don't think it will be the last. By the way, from the coats and glover you might guess it's not Spring weather here, yet.
I don't know if you can use any of this in your scrapbook, but I thought you might like to see the equipment in use.
Thanks again for all you do.
...bill nr4c (president WAARC)
********************
Date: 6 Apr 11
From: John, W4AU
This year was the first time that I had entered as CW only in the VAQP. Boy, things are a lot slower on CW in this QP compared to working mixed with SSB, and it's easy to miss many of the VA multipliers that are only heard on fone. But I certainly didn't miss the deliberate interference on 75 SSB that has plagued us in the past. Things were very difficult Saturday evening on 40 CW, though, because the folks in the BARTG RTTY contest completely dominated the lower half of 40 meters.
One thing that helped me stay in the chair was operating SO2R, and during slow times I could even alternately CQ on two bands to try and keep the rate up. I found 20 especially productive on Sunday morning and afternoon working both the western U.S. and Europe; sometimes I didn't know which way to point the beam! Also, my 191' Extended double Zepp worked great on 40 as it is oriented to work both east and west.
I was pleasantly surprised on Sunday morning when my score passed the existing HP CW record for the VAQP; it was a big lift and kept me working as hard as possible for the rest of the time. I hope that my score holds up as there were a lot of good CW ops on the air this weekend.
Thanks for all the Q's, especially for those folks who got on Sunday just to hand out a few numbers.
Rigs:
K3 & P3 -> Alpha 78
Orion -> Drake L-4B
Ants:
KT-34A @ 50'
Extended Double Zepp for 40 @ 45'
Dipole for 80 @ 50
Inverted L for 160
73 - John, W4AU
********************
QSL card from Kay Craigie, N3KN (Virginia resident and President, ARRL). Front side, Back side
********************
On, 3/24/2011 12:07 PM, [email protected] emailed::
We had a successful operation with a net 1008 QSOs (223 CW and 785 SSB) and claimed score of 203,987. I added a "/CTY" to a few of the mobile and portable stations to eliminate dupes. Eleven operators have been indicated in the cabrillo file: Bill, WF1L; Gordon, NQ4K; Kevin, W4KLS; Jim, KF4PQL; Don, K7CS; Dick, W2YE; Kevin,WB0POH; John, N3QT; Jim, AF4MO; Ray, KD4RSL; and Eric, AJ4LN. In addition we had Paul, K4PDF, and Bud, W4KSN, as visitors.
Dick's, W2YE, station operating as K4NVA. (Don, K7CS, operating at CW station. Phone station on right).
Close-Up on Phone Station
Close-Up on CW Station with Don, K7CS, operating.
Jim, AF4MO, operating at Phone Station.
Dick, W2YE, the host for K4NVA.
John, N3QT, one of the operators.
(Photos by Kevin, K4KLS and Gordon, NQ4K.)
********************
Date: 30 March 2011 5:22 PM
Hi folks,********************
This is always a great contest, and we lucked out with the weather! I
went out on the motorcycle and operated portable from Ashby Gap and
Snickersville Gap, where I had the good fortune to run into K2BFY.
Those ended up being my only successful QSOs, but it was still a great
time! Already looking forward to next year!
Thanks,
Joseph / KJ4FQJ
********************
The Alexandria Radio Club, using the club call sign of W4HFH, participated
in the 2011 Virginia QSO by having a group of its members take a trip to
Buckingham county to set up a series of stations at the James River State
Park. Randy, KI4MWQ, Sandy, KI4QNG, Harry, N4CWP, and Marshall, KI4MWP
worked Friday and Saturday morning in setting up antennas and radios. As
can be seen by the pictures, a variety of antennas and equipment were used,
ranging from 80/40 meter NVIS, G5RV's, and Icom 746 Pro's. Many contacts
were made and the group thought this was a great way to participate in the
2011 Virginia QSO party.
2m-6m-vert.jpg
DSCN2958.jpg
DSCN2960.jpg
G5RV-20mvert-40mvert.jpg
JRSP-20-10mv.jpg
KI4MWQ-N4CWP.JPG
KI4QNG-KI4MWQ-N4CWP-working.jpg
NVIS-40-80meter.jpg
73
Marshall
KI4MWP
President, Alexandria Radio Club
From: Jeremy, KF7IJZ
Date: 28 Jan 11
While working the 2011 VQP, I had a video camera running. I have********************
finished editing the footage and have come up with the following
video:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G28wjWKGSLs
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdezch_RObc
Please feel free to share this. Thanks again for the contest, and I
can't wait until next year's contest!
-Jeremy / KF7IJZ
25 Mar 11
Gordon,
That fellow who spoke about NVIS predictions was spot on when you look at our graph of QSOs by band over time.
John , KX4O
Member of Faquier Amateur Radio Association (FARA)
********************
Note: Bernie, KJ4VOV, and Larry, AK4FB (members of the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association) operated mobile from 7 counties (SPO, CLN, STA, FBX, ORG, CUL, and FAU.
I didn't get a chance to take many photos during the party, but here's three shots of our mobile attempting 2m SSB contacts from Caroline county. Maybe you can use them for your website. KJ4VOV_1.JPG, KJ4VOV_2.JPG, KJ4VOV_3.JPG.
(Did not make a single 2m SSB contact from anywhere)
Bernie - KJ4VOV
********************
I had a blast! Propagation is the recent past
was tough to work the state next door. This year the ions did
nice work. The activity from Virginia was nice and it came from
all regions. Setup was a K2 running into a low off-center fed
dipole 250 feet long, up 25 feet to tickle the clouds on the way to the
Old Dominion. Later I used my 80 and 160 meter verticals also.
TNX es 73 Curt WB8YYY Eldersburg, MD
TNX es 73 Curt WB8YYY Eldersburg, MD
********************
OPERATORS: KA3NZR WG2JSOAPBOX: WE HAD A GREAT TIME WORKING FROM SEVEN DIFFERENT COUNTIES AND ROANOKE CITY WITH FRANKLIN COUNTY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB CALL SIGN W4FCR/M. THE RIG WAS A TEN TEC SCOUT AT 50 WATTS TO 40M, 20M, AND 15M HUSTLER RESONATORS LOCATED BEHIND THE CAB OF A PICKUP TRUCK. YEE HAW!
********************
Hi,
Please see the attached log, summary and photos.
As usual we had a blast. We picked up one more county than usual this time with the addition of Carroll County. With a little study of Google Maps we found how close we were to a great location where we could get three counties within 2 miles on Highway 58. This year we were able to work from Patrick Co., Carroll Co., Floyd Co., Martinsville, Henry Co. and Danville. Thanks for hosting the QSO party!
73,
Doug, KF4VTT
Member, Alamance Amateur Radio Club
Please see the attached log, summary and photos.
As usual we had a blast. We picked up one more county than usual this time with the addition of Carroll County. With a little study of Google Maps we found how close we were to a great location where we could get three counties within 2 miles on Highway 58. This year we were able to work from Patrick Co., Carroll Co., Floyd Co., Martinsville, Henry Co. and Danville. Thanks for hosting the QSO party!
73,
Doug, KF4VTT
Member, Alamance Amateur Radio Club
********************
This years VQP had lots of activity and was a lot of fun. It really helped that the bands were in great shape with little noise.
I've been working the VQP for a many years, casually trying to work all the Va counties. I have been stuck for awhile needing just two - Smyth and Halifax. I was happy to find Halifax this year.
See everybody next year. 73! Bob NA2X
********************
From: AI3F
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:52:23 -0400
Here is my submission for the Virginia QSO Party. I was using a portable setup in a Chesapeake park with an inverted V dipole wired for 40M and placed up in a tree around 25 feet for NVIS use. I sat in the front seat of my vehicle and used a deep cycle marine battery to power my Yaesu FT-857D transceiver. The NVIS worked great for 40M on Sunday since about the only signals I received were local to Virginia. I only worked the 40M band for all my contacts during the QSO Party. My signal was coming in strong and I was able to reach and work stations even when I turned the power down to 10-20 watts. The park was only open duriNg daylight hours so I had to take down my antenna by sunset and leave the park. I went back the next morning and strung my antenna back up in the tree the next day.
I can't actually use my home for ham use because of restrictions and radio noise in the area. So far, all my contacts have been while operating portable.
Wesley Jacocks AI3F
From: AI3F
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011
Hi Gordon,
Here is the photo of my setup. I used 3 100' long orange ropes to tie up the antenna, 1 hanging from the tree limb for the center, and 2 others for each of the wires in the inverted V. In the photo, you can see the lower orange ropes and the one up in the tree. One rope is on the left of the photo wrapped around a tree and the other lower rope is wrapped around a tree on the right. The thicker tree above my vehicle is the tree with the center of the dipole and you can see some of the orange rope going up in the tree. If you look close, you can see the white balun hanging down. I think I shook the camera during the middle section, so it looks slightly doubled and blurred in the middle of the photo.
Pics/AI3F/AI3F_QSO_Party_Setup-1_small.jpg (1.6MB)
I am using an antenna from the yo-yo-tenna people and it has worked good for me so far. I used it during the ARRL International DX competition with a length for 20M at this same park, but in a different tree and adjusted the height and rotation angle of the wires to try to change the direction and range of propagation during the contest, it might have worked, because at first I was picking up a lot of QRM, but after adjustments to the height and direction, the QRM seemed to be reduced and I started picking up some different countries from before. I had been playing with some antenna modeling software and it seemed to show the vertical gain changing with height along with the angle of greatest antenna gain.
Wesley Jacocks AI3F
********************
OPERATORS: NQ2W
SOAPBOX: Seemed to be quite a bit of activity and, when I had a
SOAPBOX: chance to sit in front of the radio, there was always
SOAPBOX: someone new to work. Maybe I'll have an 80 meter
SOAPBOX: antenna for next year. Thanks to everyone that heard
SOAPBOX: my QRP signal and thanks to the organizers. State QSO
SOAPBOX: parties like this one are a lot of fun. 73, Will, NQ2W
********************
Subject: VAQP: Initial feedback from 6Y5RA
From: Iain McFadyen
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:46:03 -0700 (PDT)
* I was only able to access the shack at University of West Indies from 1800UTC Saturday to 2359UTC aturday. This club station location (access/keys) is turning out to be a real hassle.
* I took an external manual tuner for the 40/80 antenna, and manually I was able to do what the TS-2000 internal tuner failed to do earlier in the week: Match the G5RV.
* I totally overlooked the possibility of connecting TS-2000 to the PC, to automatically populate QSO freq to the logger program, and it caused me some hassle later on, when it came time to update the actual frequencies I had worked on. Thank goodness for the paper log...
* Though I had expected to have Internet access at the shack, this proved not to be the case. So no spotting available, and no callsign lookup either.
* I worked around 26 stations in the 6 hours I was on. I sent out reports up to "029" but some were given to stations who were not in VAQP.
* Initial listening around: 14MHz SSB was intimidating: Huge signals covering the whole band, from people running in a "Russian" contest. Some of the signals were terrible quality! I switched off preamp and noise blanker, and switched on attenuator but no improvement. Definitely a problem at the originating end!
* Further initial listening around: Noted all CW stations on 14MHz doing around 40wpm. All keyers, or PC-generated no doubt. So I was initially too intimidated to break out the straight Morse key.
* I ran into one station operating VAQP on 21MHz with a terrible signal. Advised him and he adjusted his processor. I ran into the *same* station on 14MHz and noted the same terrible audio and splatter on the signal. I didn't want to offend anyone too much so I didn't mention it a second time.
* I initially went into search mode on 14MHz: Looking for the VA stations between the loud stations. Slow going.
* I later switched to 21MHz. Heard NOTHING at all on the band. Sat myself on 21.370. Put out 3 calls, and got a response from a VAQP station. Apparently I had been "spotted". But that was a good and bad thing: I spent the next 2 hours fending off non-VAQP stations, interspersed with the occasional VAQP call.
* And then...... The Carnival procession came through the University campus. Kilowatts of audio power, and speaker arrays the size of shipping containers! I had absolutely no clue about this. I apologised profusely to the stations on 21MHz about the background noise, shut the (ineffective) glass shutters to keep out some of the noise, tried to keep going. Though the VA stations advised me that there was no distortion/background to my audio, the issue was really that I was unable to hear the receiver audio, even in headphones! I eventually had to walk away from the radio and cease operation till the procession moved on. Only in Jamaica, right?
* So later I went back on the air. The mini-pile-up on 21MHz had dissipated. A few calls did not get any response, so I went scanning around the bands. A couple of contacts on 7, then a couple on 14, and then back to 21 again, but didn't hear SSB activity there. But I happened to briefly switch to 21.050, and heard.... SLOW Morse! I thought: "Wowee! I'm gonna work this fella!" So I did. Shame he was in the NDQP though :-( Only came to light because his county abbreviation is not in the VAQP list.
* But it was enough of an incentive to try a couple of CW contacts myself, and hence why I owe apologies to K4ORD, K4C, and K4NVA for having to reduce their CW speed to 10-15wpm to complete my three CW contacts on 21, 14, and 7MHz respectively.
* Unverified results: 27 contacts.
Counties/Cities worked: (12)
LDN HBX FFX CHE FAU VBX MPX HCO CUL PRW FLO ALB
Bands worked SSB: 21, 14, 7.
Bands worked CW: 21, 14, 7.
Worked one Mobile station, but the logger program gives me 0 points if I add the /M to the person's callsign.
* Thanks for letting me play along, guys! Sorry I was unable to operate Sunday due to access issues at the shack...
73
Iain KI4HLV/6Y5 Operating "6Y5RA".
Kingston, Jamaica.
********************************************
Subject: Great VA QSO PARTY THIS YEAR
From: "WA3GIN"
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:44:00 -0400
This year W4KGC operated out of King George County via Internet Remote from Home to Barn where equipment and antennas are located; 1800ft down the road. There really should be a special multiplier for stations that work a VAIR station -- think about it.
The following hams operated the W4KGC VAIR station this year.
NV8U - Dale Robertson
N4CV - Ben Mills
WA3GIN - Dave Jordan
We noticed much of the Northern Neck wasn't heard by us... and over the years hasn't been represented. We're thinking about setting up mobile operations for the nothern neck for next year.
73,
dave
wa3gin
ARPSC Board Member
********************************************
CALL: KJ4OAP
CATEGORY-STATION: EXPEDITION
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OPERATOR ROOKIE
NAME: KEVIN STERNE
ORIGINALLY MEANT TO ACTIVATE ROA, CRA, GIL, BLA, TAZ, AND WYT. HOWEVER, BY THE TIME I GOT TO GIL, THINGS WERE GETTING FAIRLY CHILLY AND MY ONLY BAND WAS GETTING FAIRLY QUIET. I WAS LIMITED TO JUST 2 BANDS, 20M AND 2M. MY 20M ANTENNA BEING A CRUDELY BUILT INVERTED V DIPOLE THAT I BUILT IN 30 MINUTES IN MY DRIVEWAY THE MORNING OF MARCH 20TH. I COULD PICK LOTS OF PEOPLE ON THAT ANTENNA DOWN IN THE 40 AND 80 M BANDS, BUT I COULD NEVER GET IT TO TUNE CORRECTLY TO BE ABLE TO TRANSMIT THERE. NONE THE LESS, I STILL GOT INTO ITALY, LATVIA, AND ARGENTINA WITH THAT INVERTED V DIPOLE.
SOAPBOX: ALMOST BY CHANCE ON 3/21 I PICKED UP ANOTHER 10 QSOS JUST BY LEAVING MY 2M RIG ON IN THE CAR WHILE DRIVING I-81N AND THEN I-66E. IT WAS GREAT TO HEAR SO MANY PEOPLE ON 2M SIMPLEX!
I've been working the VQP for a many years, casually trying to work all the Va counties. I have been stuck for awhile needing just two - Smyth and Halifax. I was happy to find Halifax this year.
See everybody next year. 73! Bob NA2X
********************
From: AI3F
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:52:23 -0400
Here is my submission for the Virginia QSO Party. I was using a portable setup in a Chesapeake park with an inverted V dipole wired for 40M and placed up in a tree around 25 feet for NVIS use. I sat in the front seat of my vehicle and used a deep cycle marine battery to power my Yaesu FT-857D transceiver. The NVIS worked great for 40M on Sunday since about the only signals I received were local to Virginia. I only worked the 40M band for all my contacts during the QSO Party. My signal was coming in strong and I was able to reach and work stations even when I turned the power down to 10-20 watts. The park was only open duriNg daylight hours so I had to take down my antenna by sunset and leave the park. I went back the next morning and strung my antenna back up in the tree the next day.
I can't actually use my home for ham use because of restrictions and radio noise in the area. So far, all my contacts have been while operating portable.
Wesley Jacocks AI3F
From: AI3F
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011
Hi Gordon,
Here is the photo of my setup. I used 3 100' long orange ropes to tie up the antenna, 1 hanging from the tree limb for the center, and 2 others for each of the wires in the inverted V. In the photo, you can see the lower orange ropes and the one up in the tree. One rope is on the left of the photo wrapped around a tree and the other lower rope is wrapped around a tree on the right. The thicker tree above my vehicle is the tree with the center of the dipole and you can see some of the orange rope going up in the tree. If you look close, you can see the white balun hanging down. I think I shook the camera during the middle section, so it looks slightly doubled and blurred in the middle of the photo.
Pics/AI3F/AI3F_QSO_Party_Setup-1_small.jpg (1.6MB)
I am using an antenna from the yo-yo-tenna people and it has worked good for me so far. I used it during the ARRL International DX competition with a length for 20M at this same park, but in a different tree and adjusted the height and rotation angle of the wires to try to change the direction and range of propagation during the contest, it might have worked, because at first I was picking up a lot of QRM, but after adjustments to the height and direction, the QRM seemed to be reduced and I started picking up some different countries from before. I had been playing with some antenna modeling software and it seemed to show the vertical gain changing with height along with the angle of greatest antenna gain.
Wesley Jacocks AI3F
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OPERATORS: NQ2W
SOAPBOX: Seemed to be quite a bit of activity and, when I had a
SOAPBOX: chance to sit in front of the radio, there was always
SOAPBOX: someone new to work. Maybe I'll have an 80 meter
SOAPBOX: antenna for next year. Thanks to everyone that heard
SOAPBOX: my QRP signal and thanks to the organizers. State QSO
SOAPBOX: parties like this one are a lot of fun. 73, Will, NQ2W
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Subject: VAQP: Initial feedback from 6Y5RA
From: Iain McFadyen
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:46:03 -0700 (PDT)
* I was only able to access the shack at University of West Indies from 1800UTC Saturday to 2359UTC aturday. This club station location (access/keys) is turning out to be a real hassle.
* I took an external manual tuner for the 40/80 antenna, and manually I was able to do what the TS-2000 internal tuner failed to do earlier in the week: Match the G5RV.
* I totally overlooked the possibility of connecting TS-2000 to the PC, to automatically populate QSO freq to the logger program, and it caused me some hassle later on, when it came time to update the actual frequencies I had worked on. Thank goodness for the paper log...
* Though I had expected to have Internet access at the shack, this proved not to be the case. So no spotting available, and no callsign lookup either.
* I worked around 26 stations in the 6 hours I was on. I sent out reports up to "029" but some were given to stations who were not in VAQP.
* Initial listening around: 14MHz SSB was intimidating: Huge signals covering the whole band, from people running in a "Russian" contest. Some of the signals were terrible quality! I switched off preamp and noise blanker, and switched on attenuator but no improvement. Definitely a problem at the originating end!
* Further initial listening around: Noted all CW stations on 14MHz doing around 40wpm. All keyers, or PC-generated no doubt. So I was initially too intimidated to break out the straight Morse key.
* I ran into one station operating VAQP on 21MHz with a terrible signal. Advised him and he adjusted his processor. I ran into the *same* station on 14MHz and noted the same terrible audio and splatter on the signal. I didn't want to offend anyone too much so I didn't mention it a second time.
* I initially went into search mode on 14MHz: Looking for the VA stations between the loud stations. Slow going.
* I later switched to 21MHz. Heard NOTHING at all on the band. Sat myself on 21.370. Put out 3 calls, and got a response from a VAQP station. Apparently I had been "spotted". But that was a good and bad thing: I spent the next 2 hours fending off non-VAQP stations, interspersed with the occasional VAQP call.
* And then...... The Carnival procession came through the University campus. Kilowatts of audio power, and speaker arrays the size of shipping containers! I had absolutely no clue about this. I apologised profusely to the stations on 21MHz about the background noise, shut the (ineffective) glass shutters to keep out some of the noise, tried to keep going. Though the VA stations advised me that there was no distortion/background to my audio, the issue was really that I was unable to hear the receiver audio, even in headphones! I eventually had to walk away from the radio and cease operation till the procession moved on. Only in Jamaica, right?
* So later I went back on the air. The mini-pile-up on 21MHz had dissipated. A few calls did not get any response, so I went scanning around the bands. A couple of contacts on 7, then a couple on 14, and then back to 21 again, but didn't hear SSB activity there. But I happened to briefly switch to 21.050, and heard.... SLOW Morse! I thought: "Wowee! I'm gonna work this fella!" So I did. Shame he was in the NDQP though :-( Only came to light because his county abbreviation is not in the VAQP list.
* But it was enough of an incentive to try a couple of CW contacts myself, and hence why I owe apologies to K4ORD, K4C, and K4NVA for having to reduce their CW speed to 10-15wpm to complete my three CW contacts on 21, 14, and 7MHz respectively.
* Unverified results: 27 contacts.
Counties/Cities worked: (12)
LDN HBX FFX CHE FAU VBX MPX HCO CUL PRW FLO ALB
Bands worked SSB: 21, 14, 7.
Bands worked CW: 21, 14, 7.
Worked one Mobile station, but the logger program gives me 0 points if I add the /M to the person's callsign.
* Thanks for letting me play along, guys! Sorry I was unable to operate Sunday due to access issues at the shack...
73
Iain KI4HLV/6Y5 Operating "6Y5RA".
Kingston, Jamaica.
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Subject: Great VA QSO PARTY THIS YEAR
From: "WA3GIN"
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:44:00 -0400
This year W4KGC operated out of King George County via Internet Remote from Home to Barn where equipment and antennas are located; 1800ft down the road. There really should be a special multiplier for stations that work a VAIR station -- think about it.
The following hams operated the W4KGC VAIR station this year.
NV8U - Dale Robertson
N4CV - Ben Mills
WA3GIN - Dave Jordan
We noticed much of the Northern Neck wasn't heard by us... and over the years hasn't been represented. We're thinking about setting up mobile operations for the nothern neck for next year.
73,
dave
wa3gin
ARPSC Board Member
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CALL: KJ4OAP
CATEGORY-STATION: EXPEDITION
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OPERATOR ROOKIE
NAME: KEVIN STERNE
ORIGINALLY MEANT TO ACTIVATE ROA, CRA, GIL, BLA, TAZ, AND WYT. HOWEVER, BY THE TIME I GOT TO GIL, THINGS WERE GETTING FAIRLY CHILLY AND MY ONLY BAND WAS GETTING FAIRLY QUIET. I WAS LIMITED TO JUST 2 BANDS, 20M AND 2M. MY 20M ANTENNA BEING A CRUDELY BUILT INVERTED V DIPOLE THAT I BUILT IN 30 MINUTES IN MY DRIVEWAY THE MORNING OF MARCH 20TH. I COULD PICK LOTS OF PEOPLE ON THAT ANTENNA DOWN IN THE 40 AND 80 M BANDS, BUT I COULD NEVER GET IT TO TUNE CORRECTLY TO BE ABLE TO TRANSMIT THERE. NONE THE LESS, I STILL GOT INTO ITALY, LATVIA, AND ARGENTINA WITH THAT INVERTED V DIPOLE.
SOAPBOX: ALMOST BY CHANCE ON 3/21 I PICKED UP ANOTHER 10 QSOS JUST BY LEAVING MY 2M RIG ON IN THE CAR WHILE DRIVING I-81N AND THEN I-66E. IT WAS GREAT TO HEAR SO MANY PEOPLE ON 2M SIMPLEX!