QSO Parties - From Sea to Shining Sea

Last Tuesday, I told you about the concept of the ham radio event called a QSO Party. I focused on my pursuit of counties in the state of Florida.

That was certainly a lot of fun but this past weekend was a veritable ham radio smorgasbord!

As I noted in the 4/28 post, some QSO parties spotlight a state but others focus on a region. During the first weekend of May, the 7th Call Area (think: Western U.S. states other than California) held its event. And with some degree of overlap, the New England States did the same with the NEQP. There were ham radio operators to contact up and down the bands.

For good measure, the states of Indiana and Delaware joined the fun with their own events. 

The 7th Call Area kicked off the action on Saturday with the 7QP and I started trying to contact (or "work" in ham lingo) stations out west. As you can imagine, Arizona is fairly heavily populated so I made more contacts in AZ than anywhere else. I also had good success with Washington state and Oregon. I also worked stations in Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana. 

Unfortunately, I did not get the clean sweep of western states as I never heard anyone in Wyoming. Pity.

Another objective during my radio time was to contact my friend Tim. He and another friend were setting up remotely in a couple beautiful parks in southern Washington. I was very happy to make two contacts with them - one on the 20 meter band and a second on 15 meters. 

As a side note, those two bands are great, for me, in terms of contacting folks out west (and across the pond).

As was the case with the Florida event I told you about, I was trying to get as many counties as possible in the western states. In all, I made 56 contacts (and, of those QSOs, I collected 31 unique counties).

On to New England. 

We are planning a vacation in that area later this summer (more on that in future #CoachJeff posts), so contacting operators in those states/counties featured timeliness as a personal multiplier!

Again, the 20 meter band worked great! I added a few contacts on 15 meters but more on 40 meters (at night on Saturday).

I am happy to report I did get all six New England states and, during my 76 contacts, I checked off 36 counties.

To round out the fun, I worked one station in Delaware and three in Indiana. What a great weekend. I logged more than 100 contacts (from sea to shining sea). 

This weekend, the contest calendar turns to the Canadian Prairies QSO Party (think Manatoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta). 

And the party rolls on!

JG