| KF3M | Hanover Area Hamming Association Hanover, Pennsylvania |
Pennsylvania QSO Party 2013
We planned a club picnic for a pleasant fall day in October. It just happened to be the same day as the Pennsylvania QSO Party. A day in the park with Ham Radio. What a great idea. It rained for three days prior to this. Nine inches in the rain gage. Cancellation became a real possibility. The rain quit as we were setting up but the cloudy sky stayed.
The long-wire antenna, the antenna tuner and the IC-735 went up without problems thanks to the expertise of W3TRW and N3VN. The laptop with N3FJP contest program was no problem. Getting the computer and transceiver to talk to each other was a complete failure. We had fought this problem since Thursday and finally decided that Murphy wins this one.
With the station ready we dug into the picnic. Cold cuts, chili and chips were the main course. Several members provided pies, cakes and cookies. The food was good and we ate well.
Now being well fed, we started the contest at noon. Really - an on time start. The 10, 15 and 20 bands were wide open but crowded with the SAC (Scandinavian Activity Contest). We did not do well on those bands. The 40 meter band was great and we spent most our time there.
About 6 p.m. were shut down and packed up the station. Not much of the food had to be packed up. We were on the way home just before it got dark.
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N3VN, N3WD, W3TRW and N3MKE at the start of the contest. |
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N3VN and W3TRW getting the hang of it. |
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N3VN and W3TRW running 40 meters like pros. |
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XYL of N3XWN and N3XTP enjoying the picnic. |
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K3DUH and N3XWN eating and talking. |
Here is the hindsight report. Everybody ate until full. Everybody that wanted to operate got time in the seat. We made 150 QSOs in 6 hours. A rate of 25 QSOs per hour is good for a bunch of novice contesters. Everything worked well except the CAT interface. Thankfully, the calories per hour are not available. Oh --- we had fun, did I mention that?
