[OhQP-mail] Lack of CW Activity - or was it QRP or QLF?

[David Bunte]

Hank -

It may be a bit early for someone to give an accurate answer to the question "Has the contest gone to a majority of SSB?", but I just got done looking at the results of K8MR. Well over half of his contacts were on CW... I operated with N9FN, and, although I don't have the logs at hand, I believe most of our contacts were on CW.  

It does appear that publicity for the OQP was superb... and maybe that did bring out some newbies who were willing to give it a shot on SSB but were not ready to tackle a contest on CW.  At any rate... from the feeback I have seen so far... lots of fun was had by lots of folks... I sure know I had a great time from the N9FN van.

Certainly, if you were having trouble on CW, that could explain fewer QSO's than you might have otherwise expected.  I don't recall working you, so I can't speculate on whether it was your signal level... or your sending with the J-38, but since you were having better success on SSB than most people might expect from a QRP signal... perhaps it was just timing.

Bummer about your computer not keying the rig... was it working properly when you tested things out before hitting the road?

Did you make the trip without backup hardware?

Better luck next time.

-Dave-
-K9FN-



> Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:01:58 -0400
> From: n8xx at arrl.org
> To: ohqp-mail at ohqp.org
> CC: mrrc at contesting.com
> Subject: [OhQP-mail] Lack of CW Activity - or was it QRP or QLF?
> 
> 
> I  found a few "runs" on 75 SSB, but I was semi-disappointed with 80 CW. 
>   Things seemed too run out quickly, and I went to S&P and found few 
> "new" stations each time.
> 
> Has the contest gone to a majority of SSB?
> 
> Doing QRP with SSB on 75 is a challenge, though sometimes a "run" 
> developed - perhaps when someone put N8Q on a DX cluster - or maybe just 
> coincidence.  I didn't find a time when I exceeded 40 Q's/hour for a 
> complete hour,   The "rate meter" did exceed 60/hour for 20 minutes on 
> both CW and SSB a few times, but the string just didn't continue.
> 
> Maybe it was because on CW I was stuck with my trusty J-38, and my left 
> foot wouldn't move faster than about 18 WPM, so many folks slowed down 
> when answering my CQ's, or maybe it was just because I was running <5 watts.
> 
> Anyway, I made more Q's than in NEWAygo county during the Michigan QSO 
> party, so I can't really complain.
> 
> Now, back to figuring out why my keying circuit for my computer didn't 
> work. :)
> 
> 73 de n8xx Hg
> 
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