North American QSO Party

(Editor''s Note: I cover ham radio topics for a non ham radio audience every week in Tuesday's edition of #CoachJeff).

In previous amateur radio posts, I've told you about the notion of a "QSO Party."

Well, last weekend, we had one of the biggies. On Saturday, hams participated in the North American QSO Party. And as thew would suggest, it was open to any operator on the continent and in the Caribbean.

As I've mentioned before, a QSO Party is, essentially, an on-air scavenger hunt. So, the goal is to scoop up as many contacts as possible in a finite period of time. 

If QSOs were like a game show, think of this as "the lightning round." The exchange is quick.

First op calls CQ (meaning, I want to talk to someone)

Second op replies with callsign. (Here I am.)

First op confirms they hear you. Then, the person sends name and section (state, province, territory, etc). 

Second op acknowledges receipt of info and sends their info. I'll demonstrate. Here's what it would look like if I spelled it out.

K4KYN: CQ NAQP (North American QSO Party) de (this is) K4KYN (me)

WA4ZJW: K4KYN de WA4ZJW (former me)

K4KYN: WA4ZJW de K4KYN. Jeff TN

WA4ZJW: RRR (roger) Jeff TN.

K4KYN: TU. GL es 73 (Thank you. Good luck and so long).

WA4ZJW: 73

Easy enough.

I did that 250 times over the course of eight hours (I was actually on air for six factoring in a dinner break and other shorter breaks). 

As I mentioned, it was like a scavenger hunt. And as I also mentioned previously. I like to track my progress on a map of the U.S. (or in this case North America). Right away, you can see what areas I didn't log during my on-air time.

A few notes:

• States yellow. Provinces green.
• I never heard a station from Mexico.
• I did "work" stations from Barbados, Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and U. S. Virgin Islands (not pictured on the map).
• If it seems strange I didn't work Kentucky, it really is a difficult proposition for me. Odd signal propagation from my station to the Bluegrass State. Always is.
• Of course, TN signified by UT Vols Orange. 

Also, I like to keep stats. So, in terms of areas I talked to the most, here's what I charted. We'll call it #CoachJeff's Top 10 (the top 10 states I worked most frequently in the contest).

CA 15; TN 14; AZ 13; MN 11; PA 11; FL 10: TX 9; CO 8; NY 8; GA 7; NJ 7.

Most frequent provinces, not surprisingly, were ON and BC with 7 each.

In terms of states with lower totals, I was a little surprised by these numbers: IL 3; MI; IN 1; OH 1.  But, you can't work 'em all.

Well, technically, I guess you could, but it just so happened that, on this day, I didn't.

An added fun element of this competition was the fact the Tennessee Contest Group was incredibly active. And per the rules of this event, you could designate teams participating in the NAQP. So, within the TCG, we had five teams. I was on the TCG 33 Mandolins.

And, indeed, I hope my key was making sweet music by adding my points to our team score. 

73 de K4KYN  

JG