Combined comments from the logs and 3830Scores.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AB4B TIM WININGER WX did not cooperate hr though didn't have to disconnect but a few times. 20mtrs played as well as expected....puny that is and 40mtrs had very high QRN level due to T-storms. All in all it was challenging to say the least at times in the wide-band mode. Hope all who participated from out of state had the opportunity to work as many counties as possible since all were to be active at some time during the event. Thanks again to Jim , KC4HW for all his efforts organizing this event once again Thanks for the participation in "Biggest Little QSO Party in the South" Tim , AB4B Lauderdale county ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AD0BI LAWRENCE APPELBAUM QRP PORTABLE IN WARREN COUNTY, MO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DL3DXX DIETMAR KASPER THANK YOU FOR ALL QSOS! Another great party ! First hours with bands full of CQing field day stations most contacts needed several repeats. Did not find any Alabama station on 15m. 20m stayed open full night long surprizingly. When then sun went down over Alabama and I thought about trying 80m I found out that my QTH was already in daylight :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DL3GA ANDREAS GILLE MY FATIGUE STOPPED ME, NOT A CLOSING 20M BAND - RARE ! FINALLY HAD
THE CHANCE TO WORK CONECUH COUNTY, THE LAST ATNO IN ALABAMA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EA5IIK ANTAL, TIMAR FT 757GX ,100W , MOXON ANT. I ENJOYED IT , BAD PROPA ,73S AND TNX ALL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K1AUS ROXIE KLAUS Very poor conditions at my QTH. I could hear a few more stations but too weak to get a call sign. A lot of QSB! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K3IE HUNTER Good to hear some old friends on the air. Unfortunately, one wel-known key was silent - RIP Jerry (N4JF). Thanks for the Q's - Hunter K3IE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K3TW THOMAS J. WARREN "MANY THANKS FOR ANOTHER ENJOYABLE ALABAMA QSO PARTY." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K4NO/M Late start. Took 15 trips from the basement to the truck to get things installed and working. Radio K3 + KPA500 in the back seat, Honda EU2000i generator in the bed of the truck, 20 and 40 meter Hamsticks. 200 to 400 watts out depending on antenna tuner in K3 worked a couple of folks from the driveway (MDSN cty) before heading out to JKSN, MRSH, DKLB, JKSN and back to MDSN lots of great signals, lots of DX worked in this contest. Bands in good shape Left 15M and 80M hamsticks at house so didn't try there, just 20 and 40 in this one. Thanks to KC4HW for putting this one on. Greg K4NO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K4QPL Thanks to N4ZZ and W4AN mobiles for making this an interesting QSO party. Unusual conditions for 20M. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K4WI CORT JUDD Started out on 15 but nothing heard on entire band so tried 20. Found a spot there and went pretty good except for periods of 30/9 rain static. Finally late afternoon storms moved and I pulled the plug. At least a few lucky souls got MRGO! Great fun... tnx for all the qso's! 73's Cort ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K4WLG WALTER L GRIDER THANKS AND 73!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K7SV Hope to have more time for state QPs in the future. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K8IJ CHARLIE TRICE GREAT FUN. THANKS TO ALL, ESPECIALLY THE MOBILES. VY 73, CHARLIE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KC4HW JIM JOHNSON First of all, thanks to all that participated both in and out of Alabama. I have received 100 logs/submissions so far, very good turn out. Also thanks to all those that assisted with promoting this event. It seems to me that we had better than normal propagation. With all the activity on the band from the NPOTA and the Ships OTA and other operating events, it was busy on 20m at the start. I had to go to 14057 to find an open frequency. Fortunately many stations found me and I was off and running. 40m was good most of the time. I was committed to operating 20m and 40m so that everyone would have a pretty good opportunity to work the counties that I was going to be in. There was a period in the early afternoon that was sort of puny, but for the most part conditions were the best that I have experienced in several years. Lots of support throughout the country as well at DX and VE stations. With help from two of my friends I was able to get the Kenwood TS-50 and Hustler resonators operational on the ole 1999 Chevy pickup with 390k+ miles working. The biggest obstacle was the key circuit for the TS-50, but my old buddy Tim/AB4B found the solution--it always pays to read the manual, right Tim....hi Additionally Don/K1DC was very helpful in quickly getting the resonators tuned to frequency. Actually Don/K1DC and I were doing the antennas Friday night around 7PM. Guess you can't start to early.. hi Actually had to re-tune the 20m resonator a bit on the fly, because I was so high in the band, but it was easy to do since I knew where the resonant point was. Although it all seemed to come together at the last minute, it all work flawlessly. Never had a glitch all day. Used computer logging with Writelog and a W3YY Serial Port Keying Interface. No rig control. Writelog give you the ability to enter the frequency in the log entry window so that made it easy to change bands. The TS-50 is a bit of old technology, it seemed to work fine. I did put in a 500hz CW filter that helped, But would have been nice to have had a 350hz one--I think. Single operator NO driver! I started early to get to the tri-county area of WASH, CHOC and CLRK which I traveled to each county separately to operate. I left home at 6:15AM CDT and arrived at WASH and was ready to go on time. Was a short ride to CHOC, CLRK then a bit longer ride to the other counties (MNRO, ESCA, COVI, CONE BULT and CREN), tried to make GENE but just could not get there. Actually I spent to much time in each of the previous 9 counties and just could not get to GENE. Drove a total of 490+ miles and was at it for 17 hours and by the time I got home was a pretty beat little boy! hi. I guess this is it, thanks for all the QSOs and supporting the Alabama QSO Party! 73 Jim/KC4HW ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KC4TEO BOB As everyone knows, horrific band conditions but at least no lightning in MadisonCounty. Thanks to everyone for the Q's. Murphy struck me early Saturday evening and I lost 1.5 hours making emergency rig repairs. when XYL saw me putting it back together, I was at least hoping she'd say something sympathetic like "Honey, Elecraft has this nice new rig out called the K-something. Maybe that's what you need!" No such luck. Otherwise, I stayed with itthe full time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KG4IGC Jumped in at the end of the QSO party after returning from our club get together in Lexington. Had some trouble with my rig communicating with the computer, still not really sure why. Had to shut the rig down and reboot the computer before it picked up the rigs com ports, a real pain in the neck. Stayed in the CW portion and worked the mobiles on 40 meters, and boy were they busy! Nice and loud signals using the Superloop. Not much of a score, but had fun getting what I have! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KN4Y EDWARD PALAGYI GREAT QSO PARTY. I taped an over and under on the back window of the van and I was treated as a local wherever I traveled. Weather was great with one little drizzle around noon. mostly 20 and 40 meters, tried 15 meters without success. Too lazy to put the 80-meter antenna on. Worked 42 states and 5 provinces. Ran the NPOTA Horseshoe Bend #MP05. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KS4L Elecraft K3/100 and wire antennas in trees. Enjoyable! Thanks for the Q's. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KY4F DOUG HAFT I managed to get a piece of wire up in the air Friday evening in hopes of making at least a few QSOs in AQP. Worked fairly well, but limited op time hurt the score! Apologies to K1DC. I had a senior moment trying to reconcile an AL county with a "1" callsign. Then, my cat decided it would be a great time to jump in my lap and then dance around the paddles as I tried to explain myself. Such is life. Great job by the mobiles this year! 73, Doug KY4F ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KX4X DELL THRASHER I have seen better band conditions. nothing on 10 or 15. I did manage to work all states. Did not get to operate full time had too many interruptions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MM0LID SCOTT MCLEMAN MM0LID SINGLE OP 20 METRES QRP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N0GB DEREK VON SENG THANKS FOR THE QSO PARTY! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N1NN ROGER A. HENTERSHEE 10TH ALABAMA QSO PARTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N4KG TOM RUSSELL I started 3.5 hours late after running errands mid-day. I was going to sit this one out but after reading AB4B's plea and realizing that all counties would be represented I decided to help the deserving with another entry from Limestone County, especially on SSB. My first QSO was in response to EA7GX's "CQ Alabama"; on 20m SSB at 1931z. After a few CQ's, there were no more answers so I moved to CW with much greater success (using my barefoot radio). 40M SSB was especially flat even though I was on the suggested center frequency (7230) CQing. I had NO answers to my CQs on 15M CW. 40M was Very Productive, even before sunset. Signals on 80M were quite good in the last 2 hours but activity was disappointingly low. N8II moved me to 160M at the end,for my only QSO on that band. Tom N4KG in Limestone County AL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N4KH JIM Good fun but boy conditions were poor until after dark. Good to work some of the mobile guys on CW. Thanks for the Q's. 73, Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N4OX Limited operation with several hours lost to thunderstorms. Thanks to N4ZZ, K4ZGB, KC4HW,and W4AN mobiles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N4ZZ/M This was our 6th mobile adventure in the ALQP, and it was another exciting one. Melody KI4HVY, our trusted driver/navigator, was not able to make it this year, so Don and I split the driving duties. We found it is certainly much more challenging without her at the wheel. We did not score as high as usual, most likely due to low participation during the first half of the contest. We drove thru rain for a good portion of the contest, at times they were the heaviest downpours we had ever experienced in a mobile contest. In the past, rain caused high SWR issues, but we were able to eliminate the effect by extensive grounding of the roof rack and antenna supports on top of the Montana van. The van now has 240k miles on it, and is still going strong ready for the next one. Band conditions were exceptional, and even with the local thunderstorms the QRN for us was not bad. 20m was wide open the entire contest, so we did not bother exchanging it with the 80m Hustler vertical for the last few hours. DX was booming in on 20m, we worked 17 countries including ZL2AGY. And the short skip was also booming at over S9 at times. Totally amazing for this time in the sunspot cycle, and with just a couple of little Hustler verticals on a van (Don thinks we may need to use these at our home stations during the next DX contest HI). Here are the top 10 stations based on number of times worked: N8II (38) DL3DXX (36) ZF2DO (32) VE3NBJ (31) AD4RE (24) VE2FK (24) WB5JID (24) K4YT (21) K6MR (21) VA3ATT (21) Had the loudest signal, sounded like you were in the van! DL3DXX Dietmar - What a pro, you always find us quick and have a great signal. The XX really comes thru the pileups. ZF2DO David - Nice job from the Cayman Island We worked all but 5 of the 50 states, missing ND, VT, DE, LA, and WY. Thanks to all of you who worked us. Lots of new calls in there, which is a good sign. And to Jim KC4HW, thanks again for all you do to make this contest happen, and hope you enjoyed the contest as well. We sure did. 73 from the N4ZZ/m team: Jim - AD4EB Don - N4ZZ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N5PHT thanks - just wanted to participate a little from an Oklahoma camping trip. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N8II JEFF Storm prediction especially in the summer is a pretty inexact science. I checked the contest calendar (for a change) and confirmed that AQP was on tap. Then I checked the Weather Channel forecast to find chance of rain/thunder at least 50% for many hours starting 2PM peaking at 80%! It turned out that we had no rain and the nearest storms were over 50 miles away at closest. So, I was not liking my chances of a storm interrupted QP and horsed around Saturday morning working a good Indonesian opening on 15 meters (first time in over a month!) and walking with XYL/dog finally starting at 1643Z. Activity was not overwhelming and the museum ship weekend definitely had a negative effect on 20 meter phone activity. I dared to operate near a ship station which I was not hearing and was scolded by a MS station in a fairly nice way and also received an anonymous e-mail. Honestly, I try not to spoil anyone's fun or daily routine and try to CQ on a clear frequency. I do have no sympathy for the guys on 75 M who "monitor" a frequency without continually using it. However, there were several mobiles active which kept my interest going. Band conditions were pretty decent and seemed to favor me after dark. I checked 15 CW a few times to find no activity except the EU FD and never begged someone to give it a try. My guess is that plenty of Q's could have been made on 15 during the evening, because 20 stayed open on Es right up until 04Z with great signals most of the time. The nadir of the contest was around 2000-2045Z when 20 almost faded out and I had line noise loud enough to cover up all of the mobiles on 40. After a 35 minute break ending 2054Z things were much better, line noise down to normal fairly low and 20 open again! Many thanks to mobiles K4NO(6 QSO's), N4QP(3 Q's), Jim KC4HW(7), the ever present Ed KN4Y(13) and Tom K4ZGB(14), and the mobile teams of N4ZZ(36!) and W4AN (42 Q's!). Both of the teams were on the whole QP! Special thanks to W4AN/M ops Jeff KU8E and John, K4BAI (+3rd op/driver) for many QSY's to 20 SSB to increase the phone mult total. I felt a bit guilty when I moved them and N4ZZ a couple of times in the last 90 minutes and they called CQ with no answers after hearing my S9+ signal. KN4Y did get a ZL call after I moved him to 20 CW late. I worked Tom, N4KG on 4 bands (should have tried 15/10) and he was my lone 160 QSO. Also high in Q's with 4 or more were other home stations N4UC, W4DHN, W4DRN (seeing double!), WA1FCN/4, and NV4B. Many thanks to all for the QSO's. It is a bummer that plaques have been discontinued this year not so much for me, but for the mobiles who invest so much time, effort, and expense in making the QP a success. It probably only slightly decreases the number of active stations, but has a bigger effect on how long guys will operate. I would be more than willing to sponsor a plaque for the high mobile score, but guess it is not possible for AL. I sponsor the LP 7QP mobile plaque. 73, Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NV4B CHRIS ARTHUR This is a tale of two contests. I started out on 20m phone as usual, and although I've never had a problem getting a fairly decent rate for at least the first couple of hours, I made just 4 20m phone Qs in the first 16 minutes! Conditions didn't seem all that great, and I'm sure weather was keeping a lot of folks QRT. I finally managed a decent hour at 19Z after switching to 40m, but WX took me off the air for an hour at 2030Z. The first 4 1/2 hours were generally miserable. Returning at 2130Z, things finally started looking up and feeling more like the AQPs I'm used to! After a modest 20m CW run, I finally had a decent hour-plus run on 20 phone around 2230Z. I went to 20m CW again, and then to 40 phone around 0030Z, and the floodgates really opened. I don't ever recall getting such a good rate on 40 phone, and I was surprised to find so many people on with as much QRN as there was. Of course, it would be in the middle of this run that I had to QRT another hour for weather. I was able to pick the run back up somewhat when I returned a little after 0200Z, but since it was getting late and the threat of another thunderstorm loomed, I decided to switch to 40m CW since I hadn't spent much time there yet. I spent the remainder of the contest switching between 40 and 80 CW. Signals on 80 were surprisingly good given the noise level. At the halfway mark, I thought a total of 400 was totally out of the question, but things really turned around, and I almost made it. Without the weather breaks, I believe I would have had a QSO total comparable to recent years. The mult total ended up being fairly on-target, although I was surprised to not work a single Georgia station on CW! Thanks again to all who called. It was great to get a number of familiar calls in the log again. I was also pleased to work a number of enthusiastic new hams -- this is very encouraging! Thanks also to Jim Johnson, KC4HW for all of his hard work directing the AQP and to the members of the Alabama Contest Group who help promote the contest. Participation from Alabama seemed very good this year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N5PHT GARY STONE CAMPING IN OKLAHOMA - THANKS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NC6K My first foray into SO2V - seemed to help my rate at times. Family time and household chores limited me to a few hours, but it was fun anyway. Nice that the bands are still open when the sunspot number is 0! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NG7Z Put up the antenna just long enough to make a few contacts then took it down. HOA police are on the prowl. Wanted to at least let the AL guys know they weren't forgotten in AZ. 73 Paul NG7Z ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OH1TD TAUNO KARVO I SENT 59 DX ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VE2FK Bravo to the /M opr.73 Claude VE2FK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VE9AA Haven't played in this one in a few yrs. It used to coincide with our own contest here (the Maritime QSO Party - (sk), but it still clashes with the EU FD. For most of the day, prop was poor and the AL stns were S1 (if that) while the EU's were all 559-5NN, so it was tough to make Q's in the middle of EU FD. (that's what it sounds like up here) As the day wore on, condx were better. Near the end I was able to work a few on 40m also, but all in all did not have as much seat time as I would've liked. (too much going on outside) It was fun to track DOn, N4ZZ and the motley crew piloting W4AN but I didn't make too many Q's as I went to bed early for a change. 73 de Mike VE9AA 2xIC7410's + wires, N1MM+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W1DWA DONALD DAVIS CONDX GOOD IN WMA. THANKS TO ALL ALA OPS. HAD A GREAT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W1END ELDON BURKINSHAW RIG WAS FTDX5000 AND BUTTERNUT HF6V ALL-BAND VERTICAL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W4AN JEFFREY CLARKE IC756ProII, 100W, Hustler mobile whips. Jeff, KU8E and John, K4BAI, and Jeff's two teenage sons, Andrew and Randy, planned a 23-county mixed mode entry in AQP on Saturday. Problems with a non functioning inverter used to power the laptop caused us to start 55 minutes late. Fortunately, we had a spare inverter that worked fine once we determine what the problem with the laptop was. During the day, we also had to stop for short periods of time. Once was because one of the antenna mounts developed a short. Jeff was able to clear up that problem, which had occurred once in the past. We had some RFI problem with the computer, which was fixed by a toroid on the keying line to the computer. During the contest, the rig shut down a few times and finally wouldn't come back up after a shut down. Jeff located the trouble, which was in a secion of power cable going from the West Mountain distribution system to the rig. Fortunatley, we had another cable like that with our back up rig (an Icom 756Pro). At the beginning, all bands seemed dead. We were set up with a 20M and a 15M resonator on a tri mount tuned for 20CW and 15CW. On another mast, we had another 20M resonator tune for about 14250 for SSB. After 3 hours and 20 minutes with no antenna for 40M, we determined that the internal tuner in the Icom would allow us to use just the one 20M resonator on the tri mount for both 20CW and 20SSB, so we removed the second 20M resonator and exchanged it for a 40M resonator, which worked quite well. We never pulled out the 80M resonator, since 20M stayed open until the end of the contest period, even though it seemed that only N8II, DL3DXX, and K6MR knew it was still open. While we were working on the computer problem, the bands picked up a bit and we started in RSSL, although also stopped there to work on the RFI problem and make other adjustments. Running so far behind our planned schedule, we change routes and ended up putting out 19 counties, instead of the planned 23. The sponsors had announced that there was promised activity in all counties before we posted our planned route, so I hope we didn't let anybody down by missing some other counties in south AL, more remote to our home QTHs in and near Columbus, GA. Activity seemed low for the first few hours. We never heard a signal on 15M even though we sent CQs there several time, and no one asked us to move to 15. So far, I haven't seen any 15M QSOs in the 3830 posting for this contest. Activity and band conditions improved greatly later in the afternoon. We worked a number of DX stations including DL, SM, I, LY, other Europe, ZF2DO and HC2AO. We worked some DLs, LY5W, and IK0MHR on 40M too. 20M was never really long. We were able to work VA and IN and further out from our first activity on 20. Later, it got even shorter and we worked NC, KY, AR, and maybe TN on 20M. But we never heard or worked any GA or FL stations on 20M and no AL stations other than K1DC when we were close to his county. On 40M, the skip was long during the day in that we could not hear other AL stations at all, except for those local to us. We could hear and work stations in NC and MS and further. Eventually, it shorted out and we worked a lot of other AL stations on 40 and it never seemed to go long until after the end of he contest period. The volume of QSOs on 20M dramatically decreased when the sun went down, but N8II was still very strong until our last QSO at 0358Z. 40M was quite strange after dark. First, some (but not all) signals developed a RAC-like buzz. We thought there was some maladjustment on the receiver, but with the noise blanker off, signals were still buzzing. 20M signals all sounded normal. Then most non-local 40M signals developed a very pronounced flutter that lasted perhaps the last two hours of the contest. When 0400Z rolled around, the signals returned to normal as we motored back to GA and worked a few European NFD stations on 40M. As to multipliers, I think we missed DE on CW, LA, HI, WY, and ND on both modes. Thanks to all who found us on phone or moved to phone from CW to give us QSOs and multipliers. We also worked VE1, VE9, VE2, VE3, VE6, VE7, VE8, and KL7 stations. The last three were on SSB only. Great thrill to be called by VE8NSD and AL7KE on 20M SSB. We were also called by a KP4 on 20M SSB, but, of course, that was not a mult. Thanks to the sponsors and KC4HW for doing his usual great job on AQP. We plan to return in future years. And my personal thanks to Jeff, KU8E, and his sons for planning, engineering, driving, and sharing the operating. Lot of fun and thanks to all for the QSOs. 73, John, K4BAI for the team. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W4DHN WIREGRASS AMATEUR RADIO CLUB effort. Thanks to all for the QSO's and your patience with the poor weather we were having here. Noise levels were very high. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W4HOD RICHARD C. JAEGER THANK YOU TO ALL THAT GAVE US QSOS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W5/MM0LID SCOTT Short Operation. Single Op 20M QRP. Band very noisy and very few Alabama Stations heard in Texas. Thanks for the points although very minimal. See you next time around. 73 MM0LID Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6NF Thanks to all the stations that provided Qs and mults. Special thanks to Don, N4ZZ, and his crew who gave me 8 Qs and 6 mults! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6RLL JOE YOUNG THANKS FOR ALL THE QSOS. 73 DE JOE, W6RLL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W8JPF JOE FISCHER THANKS. HAD A GOOD TIME. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- W8KNO My daughter was in from NC and I was packing for the USS Hammerberg Reunion. Thanks to those who took my call! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WA1FCN ROB BEAUDOIN Writelog did not score correctly, so I did this manually. I think it's ok ? It has been a few years since I last put this much time in contest. I hope you all had fun. 73 BoB WA1FCN WLKR county ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WA8HSB Thunderstorms abounded all afternoon so started late. Glad I was able to provide MOBI to all. Thanks to those who had to pull my signal out of the noise; your patience and persistence is greatly appreciated. Highlight was having LY5W answer my CQ on 40m given the band conditions. Elecraft KX2 @ 5 watts to attic antennas using AZ ScQRPion paddle 73, John ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WN4AXP DAVE Unable to give this one a full-time effort, but put in 5.5 hours... The mobiles ops really came to the party. Thanks to W4AN, N4ZZ, KN4Y, K4ZGB, KC4HW and K4NO for getting out there and running all those counties! Of course, more CW and Phone in this one. From SC, 20m was impossible, but 40m was in good shape during the entire contest for me. Looking forward to the next one! 73s Dave WN4AFP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WQ5L Operated on and off the first couple and last couple of hours. Spent the afternoon helping with an NPOTA event. Not much action in the early leg but much better in the evening. Short skip nonexistent except for a couple of signals on 20 from the far (north) end of the state around sunset, who I missed because logging computer was throwing a tantrum at the time. The mobile ops rocked as always -- thanks! 73 de WQ5L ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WX4HP HEATH PLUNKETT CULLMAN COUNTY