Dan Farren, W3HA (SK)
Founder of the
Carbon Amateur Radio Club
(formed in 1948)
 
 

The 1999 running of the Pennsylvania QSO Party was a banner event for radio amateurs in the state of Pennsylvania and in many other locations, as well.  The Carbon Amateur Radio Club has a special reason to be proud this year.  The bonus station for the contest was none other than our very own W3HA, a huge operation held at the QTH of K3PP and staffed by a superb collection of operators.  Congratulations to this incredible team of operators which included: N3CR, K3CT, WB3IHF, N3MAV, W3MF, KA3NGH, K3PH, K3PP, N3RXJ, K3TEJ, and K3VA.  Contesting icon, and hero to the Carbon ARC, K3II, was hosting the annual reunion of his WWII bomber crew "Ryan's Rascals" but he did stop by to visit the troops at W3HA.  W3OWP, a prodigy of the original W3HA and licensed in 1948, also visited.  It was nice to have these two living legends of the club spending some time with the operation.

The team pulled off 2930 QSOs and an amazing score of 502,498 POINTS!!  This shatters the old record of 404,151 points set last year by many of the same operators on the K3II team.

Back Row:
W3MF, K3PP, K3PH, K3II, N3RXJ

Middle Row:
W3OWP, KA3NGH, N3CR

Front Row:
K3TEJ, K3VA, K3CT

Not Available for Photo:
WB3IHF, N3MAV

The 1999 running of the Pennsylvania QSO Party was a banner event for radio amateurs in the state of Pennsylvania and in many other locations, as well.  The Carbon Amateur Radio Club has a special reason to be proud this year.  The bonus station for the contest was none other than our very own W3HA, a huge operation held at the QTH of K3PP and staffed by a superb collection of operators.  Congratulations to this incredible team of operators which included: N3CR, K3CT, WB3IHF, N3MAV, W3MF, KA3NGH, K3PH, K3PP, N3RXJ, K3TEJ, and K3VA.  Contesting icon, and hero to the Carbon ARC, K3II, was hosting the annual reunion of his WWII bomber crew "Ryan's Rascals" but he did stop by to visit the troops at W3HA.  W3OWP, a prodigy of the original W3HA and licensed in 1948, also visited.  It was nice to have these two living legends of the club spending some time with the operation.

The team pulled off 2930 QSOs and an amazing score of 502,498 POINTS!!  This shatters the old record of 404,151 points set last year by many of the same operators on the K3II team.

HF Stations

Transceiver	Amplifier	Bands/Modes	Power
Kenwood TS-570S	Ameritron AL-80B	40m CW and 80m CW	1000W
Yaesu FT-1000D	Ameritron AL-1200	20m	1500W
Kenwood TS-850S	Alpha 91B	10m and 160m	1500W
Icom IC-775DSP	Acom 2000A	40m SSB and 75m SSB	1500W
Icom IC-765	Alpha 87A	15m	1500W

VHF Stations

Transceiver	Amplifier	Bands/Modes	Power
Icom IC-736	none	6m	100W
Icom IC-706MkII	Military surplus	2m	400W
Icom IC-38A	Homebrew	222 FM	80W
Icom IC-706MkIIG	none	440 FM	20W

This is a SERIOUS collection of hardware!  K3II estimates we had about $50,000 in radio gear, not counting computers, of which we had 8 for logging.  It is also requires a great deal of PP&L-supplied AC.  K3PP ran a 100A 240V service panel with separate 20A 240V circuits for the four big amplifiers, a dedicated 20A 120V circuit for the AL-80B and one for the 2m station, and four other 20A 120V circuits to support transceivers, computers and accessories.
 
Antennas

160m	Inverted V at 60 feet
80m	CW dipole at 40 feet plus a SSB dipole at 40 feet, parallel to each other, about 100 ft apart
40m	Horizontal Loop at 25 feet for CW plus a SSB dipole at 30 feet, plus a vertical
20m	Force 12 EF-420 4 element yagi at 68 feet
15m	Force 12 EF-415 4 element yagi at 76 feet
10m	Force 12 EF-410 4 element yagi at 84 feet
6m	Cushcraft A50-3S 3 element SSB yagi at 35 feet, Cushcraft A50-3S FM yagi at 50 feet
2m	13 element SSB yagi at 40 feet,12 element FM yagi at 45 feet, StationMaster at 40 feet
1 .25m	StationMaster at 40 feet
70cm	Comet vertical at 30 feet, 7 element yagi at 30 feet, pointed south

From left to right: 4 element monobanders pointing west (20m at 68 feet, 15m at 76 feet, 10m at 84 feet), the feedpoint for the 160m Inverted-V is a few feet above the top guy wires, one end of the 80m CW dipole is 10 feet below the top guy wires, 1.25m StationMaster, Comet CX-333 VHF/UHF Vertical, VHF yagis (3 el 6m SSB, 13 el 2m SSB, 12 el 2m FM, 3 el 6m FM)

Here is the layout of the antennas used for the W3HA operation.  Click on the image for a larger, more readable copy.  The layout was an attempt to minimize interference to the neighbors and to minimize interference between stations.  Apparently, we were too tightly packed, because interstation interference was a big problem for us.

This QTH is atop a hill at 1150 feet above sea level.  The terrain towards Europe is a steep drop off the upper right of the property diagram.  A detailed terrain analysis of the K3PP property is available on K3PP's web site.

We worked the last PA county (ELK) at 5:23 PM EDT Saturday afternoon!  In all, we worked every ARRL section except VI and we missed five RAC sections (NB, PEI, YT, NWT, LB) for 145 total multipliers.

We planned to award certificates to any station to work us 10 or more times.  This must have been a pretty difficult task, since only ten stations were able to do it.  They are:
 

QSO Certificate Winners
K3ANS	10 QSOs
K3CR	12 QSOs
KC2ZA	16 QSOs
KF3DI	12 QSOs
N3MV	11 QSOs
N6MU	10 QSOs
W3DYA	12 QSOs
W3OWP	10 QSOs
W3USA	17 QSOs
WD5BRP	15 QSOs

N6MU's effort is especially notable because he is in California!  KC2ZA also made a special effort, working us on every band and mode we had except for 6m CW.  We may relax the criteria for a certificate so more stations can qualify, but no conclusions have been made as of this writing.

The chart on the left is a plot of the W3HA performance throughout the weekend.  Click on the chart for a larger, more readable image.  The chart shows the growth in QSOs and score along with the 10-QSO rate and the bands we were on at any given time.

This chart was generated by importing the log data into Microsoft Excel, inserting some calculations, and then generating the graph.
 
 

This is another view of the breakdown by the hour.  Click on this chart also, for a larger, more readable image.  On both graphs, you can see how we started off strong and how slow the pace was on Sunday morning.

We started off with a bang.  After the first hour, we had 284 QSOs in the log!  We started out with the 5 HF stations on 40m CW, 40m SSB, 20m CW, 15m SSB, and 10m SSB.  Inter-station interference plagued us the whole weekend, so we had to reduce power on some stations.  Rarely did we have all five running full power at the same time.  Despite the interference, we maintained a good rate for most of the weekend.

Conditions were excellent on Saturday.  K3TEJ's prediction of 2000 QSOs by shutdown Saturday night came true.  When the contest broke for the night, we had 2007 valid QSOs logged!  Sunday's conditions were less favorable.  The expected morning opening to Europe never really materialized, so our prospects for a half million points seemed dim.

We broke the old record at 11:23 AM Sunday EDT when we worked NY3A on 15m CW.  As the end drew near, we knew we were close to the 500,000 point mark, but the logging computers were not networked and we didn't know for sure.  After the final QSO, we tallied up the numbers to learn the good news.  Even after cleaning the log, the final total was 2930 good QSOs and 502,497½ points!

We are elated with the results, although K3ANS posted a preliminary score of 509,665 points, apparently beating us by a measly one percent.  The true winner will not be known until the logs are checked by the contest sponsors.  This one is way too close to call!

We thank everyone for the QSOs and we thank our fellow Carbon ARC members for the support in this historic event.  The Carbon Amateur Radio Club may be small, but we pack quite a punch!

A breakdown of QSOs per multiplier, highlights those areas where QSOs are plentiful and where they are scarce.  Luzerne and Northampton Counties each netted over 100 QSOs for us.  There is obviously a lot of PA QSO Party participation in these and a few other counties.  Philadelphia County continues to mystify everyone.  The most populous county in the state is continually one of the most difficult multipliers in this contest!

The Running Tally Board
Since we didn't have the computers networked, we periodically gathered the numbers from
each computer and jotted them on the whiteboard.  This is how we tracked our overall
progress.  Yes, this is the "Information Age" and we had several computer experts on hand,
but this is how we did it.  Sometimes, we still need to rely on the old methods.

As you can see, some of us got a little silly on Sunday and scribbled down more than just
scoring information!  :-)
 

K3II and W3OWP
Legends of the Carbon Amateur Radio Club.

K3PH operating 20m SSB
Yes, we were also quite amazed!  This is a rare photo indeed!
Bob is a die-hard CW man who can run circles around most people on
CW, but a microphone is something he really dislikes.
It just goes to show the sacrifice Bob will make for the good of the team!

K3TEJ operating 40m CW
John is an incredible CW operator and was responsible for
almost all of our 40 and 80 meter CW QSOs!

K3VA operating 15m CW
Ed is another superb CW man. Our abundance of CW talent made
a big difference in the score!

KA3NGH operating 40m SSB
Goody, our workhorse on 40m SSB and 75m SSB, has since changed his
call to K3NG! Listen to Goody working NA2X from the NA2X side of the pileup.
Thanks Bob for providing the audio clip from your end!
Bob has more audio clips on his great web site.

N3RXJ operating 2m FM and
WB3IHF operating 6m SSB
We had the hardware and the operators on VHF, but there were few people
on VHF to work. We hope VHF participation will increase in future PA QSO Parties!
 

N6MU:
"By the way, kudos to the W3HA gang for a super effort.  I worked them 10 times,
although the last one on 75 was really tough."

NA2X:
"Just a super, super job you guys (and gals, if there were any).  Congrats on a terrific job!!"

K3CR (KB3AFT op):
"Great job by the gang at W3HA to be active on all bands/modes!"

N3IXR:
"You folks did a spectacular job!  Thanks for such a great effort in making the bonus station so available."
"W3HA crew - no description seems worthy of what you did!  Fantastic operation."

AA3B:
"Awesome performance by K3CR and W3HA!"

WA3SES:
"Super job; you guys were everywhere."

W4CAT (K1KY op):
"W3HA big signal on all bands."

W3HA ops:
"THANKS A MILLION EVERYONE!!  WE HAD A GREAT TIME!!"

Web Page by Glenn O'Donnell, K3PP  [email protected]
Copyright 2000 - Carbon Amateur Radio Club