[OhQP-mail] OQP Soapbox from WW8OH (COOKEN ARC)

[w3hkk at roadrunner.com]

 WW8OH ran three stations.  W3HKK ran the indoor CW station on 80-40 while the other guys handled  SSB on 80/40 (100w to a 30 ft high Fritzel antenna) and 20/15/10 ( 100w to the new club Hexxbeam at 35 ft) via two outdoor stations, taking advantage of the beautiful Ohio weather. We had only light and sporadic inter-station QRM. 

CW ran 100w to a 160M loop up 70 ft. ( too much work to drop it down to a better NVIS height of c. 30 ft)  The  CW numbers were 300 Q's, 45 unique counties, 95 mults. On the air time was c. 10 hrs. so the rates were disappointing.  Total unique counties seemed  correspondingly low, perhaps due to our more central location.    

A few comments from the CW side, off the top of my head, as I dont have the combined logs in front of me:

- Kudos to the boys in Delaware County for a number of Big Sigs! and big numbers!
- the state perimeter counties seemed to have the best sigs, esp.  up around CUYA ( well represented this year!) and down in SWOH.  
- I started out on 80M at noon and picked up 7-8 counties right off the bat, but then it slowed way down and I migrated to 40. 
- Amen! to the evening  40M RTTY free-for-all comments.  I had to QSY down to 7.035 or so to find a crack.  I was hoping for a nice evening run that never materialized. I suspect the best rates were around 6 pm. 
-The last couple hours on 40 was slooow going so I wound up on 80, both CQ and S&P modes for the last hour.  Picked up two nice mobiles/new counties near the end. Thanks guys! 
-
- I worked maybe 3-4 mobiles total- which were all the ones I heard.
- worked  95% CQOQP and 5% S&P to take advantage of the cw memory keyer in the IC7600. 
- such contests always teach  me to expect the unexpected. 

See you next year!