Although I did have an opportunity to operate from a M/2 station, with the ongoing worry around COVID-19 I decided that it was best to operate from home. Team contests are a lot of fun, but as I’ve done this contest from home before I also had a personal best to set.
As always when operating from home I was using my IC-7610, 100W output to dipoles in the attic.
To start with I was on 10m to see if there were any locals. I only managed 2 stations, one in MD and the other in VA. Then on to 15m where there wasn’t a lot of activity visible and I only managed a few extra QSOs. My best bands were 20m and 40m, and by the time it came to 80m I was getting rather tired so decided to cut and run at 350 QSOs, but I could have worked a lot more on 80m if I could have stayed awake longer.
In total 8 hours 30 mins in the chair, with only a few breaks to attend to other things.
Band QSOs Pts Sec Mt2 Pt/Q
3.5 55 55 21 0 1.0
7 142 142 31 1 1.0
14 145 145 30 1 1.0
21 6 6 5 0 1.0
28 2 2 2 0 1.0
Total 350 350 89 2 1.0My points are counted for the Potomac Valley Radio Club, and I was part of the PVRC Laurel team.
Having operated in a few NAQP events now it’s interesting to see that I must now be in the call history file, fewer people are asking me for repeats of my name, and also more people are hearing my full call – instead of logging me as AD5X.
I had been planning to look for some specific states for my WAS totals, but the NAQP rules meant that if I had used the RBN then I would be moved into the M/2 category, and that would mean my score wouldn’t count toward the PVRC Laurel team. I decided to run un-assisted as a result. I’ll have to chase my remaining WAS CW slots another time.