K3II 1998 Pennsylvania QSO Party



Berger's Bandits!

This is the motley crew that broke the long-standing record for the multi-operator, multi-transmitter class in the PA QSO Party!  The five of us operated four stations, three at a KW or more, plus some sporadic contacts on VHF and UHF.  The numbers are shown below, along with some other information about this historic contest effort.

From left to right, the operators are:

     K3CT           John Bednar
     K3II             Jim Berger (our idol and fearless leader)
     K3PP           Glenn O'Donnell
     KA3NGH    Anthony "Goody" Good
     KR3I           Ed Eroh

Behind us, the wall is covered with some of K3II's rich collection of QSL cards.  Most of these are from countries long since placed on the DXCC deleted countries list.  They are among the rarest QSL cards around!



Old PA QSO Party Multi-Multi Record:            388,066 Points set by NE3F in 1991

New PA QSO Party Multi-Multi Record:     404,151 Points set by K3II in 1998 !!!!


     Call used: K3II                                          Location: MOE
     Category: Multi-Op, Multi-Xmtr       Mode: MIXED          Power: 1500W
     Callsign of Operator: K3II
     Exchanged Information: K3II nr MOE
 
     band   CW QSOs     CW pts  Phone QSOs  Phone pts
    ---------------------------------------------------
     160         30         60         95         95
      80        164        328        217        217
      40        264        396        417        417
      20        188        282        202        202
      15         68        102        287        287
      10         28         42        255        255
      50          0          0          3          3
     144          0          0         44         44
     222          0          0          3          3
    ===================================================
     TOTAL      742       1210       1523       1523

      Multipliers:      67  Pennsylvania Counties
                        79  ARRL/RAC Sections (Missed LB, SK, NWT, and NF)
                         1  DX
                       =============================
                       147  TOTAL MULTIPLIERS
 

       2265 Total QSOs    2733 Total QSO Points    147 Total Multipliers

     ( 2733 ) QSO points  X  ( 147 ) Multipliers =    401,751 points

                        12 BONUS QSOs WITH K3YTL =  (   2,400 ) points

              **********  FINAL SCORE ********** =  ( 404,151 ) points
 
 
     Club or Team Name: Carbon Amateur Radio Club  



Comments
The Pennsylvania QSO Party is one of the finest amateur radio events on the planet!

This effort began as an informal idea to run a multi-multi operation from one of the finer DX contest stations in the world. K3II is a terrific guy with a terrific station and a terrific QTH.  We just planned to operate and have a good time.

We knew we could do very well from Jim's place, but as the planning process went on, we started thinking that we could really win this contest.  We also did some analysis and came up with a strategy that could get us the new record.  It worked!  We smashed the old record and broke 400,000 points for the first time in the 41 year history of the contest.

K3 Performance Plot
I entered our log into an Excel spreadsheet, ran some calculations and produced an interesting graph of our progress over the contest period.  This kind of data will be a useful study for the next PA QSO Party contest. Click on the image for a larger version.

The graph shows the growth in QSOs, Mults, and Score over time.  It also shows the rate for the past 10 QSOs at each point and the bands we were on at the time.

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs!  This was a VERY memorable contest for all of us in Berger's Bandits!
 



Our equipment for the 1998 Pennsylvania QSO Party:

 Transceiver 1:    Icom IC-775DSP  + Alpha 87A              1500W
 Transceiver 2:    Yaesu FT-1000   + Ameritron AL-1200      1500W
 Transceiver 3:    Kenwood TS-850S + Ameritron AL-80B       1000W
 Transceiver 4:    Icom IC-736                               100W
 Transceiver 5:    Icom IC-706MkII in K3PP's truck (6m QSOs) 100W
 Transceiver 6:    Yaesu 2m FM Mobile on Astron Power Supply  50W
 Transceiver 7:    222 MHz FM Mobile in K3CT's car            25W
 
  160m antenna:    N4KG reverse-fed 100 ft tower
   80m antenna:    Delta loop
                   Dipole at 30 ft
                   1/4 wave vertical
   40m antenna:    2 el monobander at 60 feet
                   1/4 wave vertical
   20m antenna:    4 el monobander at 100 feet
                   4 el monobander at  50 feet
   15m antenna:    Force 12 EF-515 5 el monobander at 112 feet
                   5 el monobander at  60 feet
   10m antenna:    5 el monobander at 50 feet
    6m antenna:    High Sierra HS-1500 mobile antenna on K3PP's old truck
    2m antenna:    12-el yagi
 1.25m antenna:    1/4 wave ground plane on K3CT's Jeep Cherokee



A few Photos (by KA3NGH):
Photo 1: KR3I (left background) operating 40m CW; K3PP (center foreground) probably operating
                10m CW; and K3CT (right background) probably operating 20m CW
Photo 2: K3PP operating 10m Phone at the main station - This is a good display of K3II's excellent
                equipment and efficient layout
Photo 3: KR3I operating 40m CW - Ed is a terriffic CW operator!


Last Updated on 24-Nov-98
By Glenn D. O'Donnell, K3PP
Email: [email protected]