2009 Soapbox Comments

Writeup | New England Scores | Scores from Outside New England | Breakdowns of Top Stations | Soapbox Comments

W/VE Stations Outside New England

VA3OR – A fun and polite contest. Limited time, but very enjoyable.

VE3HUR – Had lots of fun and was able to work all six states.

VE3UTT – Good fun but 20m difficult at this distance. Good job by the rovers – thanks for all of the hard work. Hope all had fun and hope to see some of you at Dayton.

VE4EAR – Great fun again this year!

VE5BCS – Contest was enjoyable and band was OK.

VE5BF – Great QSO party, hope to do it again next year.

VE7FCO – Thanks for another good Contest. Band conditions were not the Greatest. Able to work All stations that I heard.

VE9DX – Just before the contest my rig packed up so had to go to plan B running about 1 watt with the vertical on 40 and the low dipole on 80. I heard lots on 20 and even 15 but was not able to be heard.

AE4O – 1st time participant. Thank you for the contacts with some great NE area operators. Plan to be back next year. K2 @ 10W to horizontal loop at 50 feet.

K0GEO – Thanks for another fun NEQP! Really wish the conditions had been better; had been hoping for many more QSO’s! Will be on for NEQP in 2010 no matter what ! More sunspots vs Maunder Minimum then !?

K1AA -Hoping to see you next year…..I will be 88 in October…..still love amateur radio. (SK in November 2009)

K1SE – didn’t work the other QP’s. Concentrated on NEQP as I enjoy it very much every year and also because I’m a transplant here in VA from my native State of RI.

K1TN – Wonderful to work old New England Friends. Great 40 Meter condx from here, short skip and quiet. Tnx to the mobiles. Sorry I can’t do more on 80 Meters. On Saturday I heard some NE on 20 Meters pretty well but only a couple pulled me out — resulting in 3-banders with K1IB and W1UE — how cool!. Things were hopping in the last hour; guess some people showed up only for the finale. Lots of big-name NE contest call signs MIA this weekend. Maybe they were slumming on slopbucket or digital. I spent time on Saturday in the Indiana and 7 QSO parties, too, and as a result I pulled the plug early that evening. Not sure if running two or three parties at the same helps or hurts overall activity or scores. Used my 42-foot end-fed wire at 15 feet AGL. Flash — Busted pileups on 40!

K1ZZI – Great fun chasing the mobiles around again. Lots of activity with 10 & 15m open for a while too. Hats off to the entire NEQP team for a super job and fun weekend! K1KI/M (30), WA1Z/M (26), K1EP/M (16), NE1QP/M (14), N1RR/M (9), KO1U/M (5), W1WEF/M (4), WW1M/M (3), K1DG/M (2).

K2RP – Since I got my USA county award a couple of years back for all counties, I’m not as active in these events, but it was a good one! Don’t care what weekend it is next year; I’ll try to make it whenever you can!

K2ZC – Used my Elecraft K2 running 5 watts to Elecraft T1 antenna tuner and 80m delta loop. 40 meters and 80 meters were great. Too close for 20 meters to be any good. Lots of fun. Tnx to all who made the extra effort to pull my qrp signal out of the noise.

K3TN – Many great CW ops.

K3TW – “Many thanks to the fine New England operators for making this such an enjoyable contest. As always, the mobile stations did an excellent job in covering many counties. Conditions on 20m were very favorable with many loud signals that are normally much weaker on backscatter.”

K4CFQ – First time working the NE QSO Party … fun

K4CX – I really enjoyed working your QSO party.

K4JSI – I really enjoyed this year’s event, especially the short skip between here (Maryland) and New England on 20M on Sunday!

K4OD – Had a super time – will do it again

K6CSL – My very meagher effort. These were pretty much what I was hearing through all the 7’s this week-end. I did add these to my CW County Hunters log as well. I sure hope conditions will be better next year, so I can send you a bigger log. It would also help if you could get scheduled on a different weekend than the 7QP.

K7EAR/N5IA – Our group participated in the 7QP and certainly were happy to put a lot of NEQP stations into our log.

K7NJ – Great Contest ! Too bad power line noise developed during most of the daylight hours.

K7RFW – Did not hear many New England stations, and most I did could not hear me. Heard some nice pileups though, must be the prizes offered.

K8QWY – Great Contest think I worked more New England than I did in the Marac Test. The nice skip on 15 & 20 had me hooked….

K9EN – Good contest. Had fun and picked up soume county needs.

K9NX – I took a spin thru 10 meters and there was one station calling CQ!!!!

K0HNC – Enjoyed the well participated event, especially the Maine counties that I don’t hear often.

KB6NU – Thanks for a fun contest.

KC2HZW – Only able to operate for an hour but plenty of fun!

KC4MYV – Could not get much this year maybe next year

KD0CVZ – Thanks much. Had lots of fun as a first timer!

KE7DX – Worked the 7QP/NEQP from within Bryce Canyon National Park this year, on the Kane/Garfield Utah County Line. The rain and hail delayed my antenna deployment, but, once done, enjoyed the contests despite the adverse weather. As usual, found plenty of New England folks in their contest. Seemed like Indiana folks were participating this year, as well. Once the rain cleared, beautiful scenery of the National Park.

KE0G – QRP – 5 watts, CW, Single op. Elecraft K-3/10, 74′ dipole at 60′ up, fed with ladder line and Matchbox tuner

KG4TQQ – It was a great time.

KI6OY – I hope some day the Sun Spots come back

KJ8O – Not too many QSOs but I had a lot of fun and will look forward to this event next year.

KJ9C/m – Hope that at least a few New Englanders send in logs for Indiana QSO Party. Many were not interested in my county info, and started sending CQ before I had finished sending my exchange.

KQ1X – NEQP 2009 was a blast from the Rhode Island Embassy in Ohio! Thanks for another great year with the NEQP. It is by far my favorite contest.

KS9K/N4TZ – Spent more time with Excel and DOS EDIT trying to make valid Cabrillo file than I spent working the contest. Maybe I’ll stick with the easy DX contests!

KY6LA – Finally Worked Maine

N2WN – Interesting conditions Saturday, asked K1GQ to try 10M and actually heard him under QRM from a real QSO. Too bad I was QRP we may have made the Q. 15 was decent into NE from here too, at times some of the stations were 20 over. It was nice to beat my old high score. Looked for RTTY, but found no activity from NE on Saturday, we’ll see if there’s any today. Storms all over the area, but QRN wasn’t too horrible. Thanks to K1LPS for working me on RTTY for TPA (and the points too)! Sunday was even better with a nice 10M opening. Was told I was 5 over on SSB, but that lasted only seconds. Really enjoyed chasing the mobiles particularly K1KI, WA1Z and NE1QP (nice call for this show) were easy to find and work. Seems you really need to work CW and SSB to catch all the multipliers, and many showed up towards end Sunday. 80 activity was light, think there was enough QRN in many places and better conditions on the higher bands. Thanks again for a fun contest. Will eagerly anticipate the club scores, hoping TCG will take the top slot this year!

N4ARO – Great performance by the Mobiles, looking forward to seeing the scores for this one. Condx were good here and nice to have some 15 and 10 meter openings. The NEQP is right up there with the California Party and the Tennessee Party. Thanks to all the participants from NE.

N4CD – Had to send log in…wanted to put my stickers for all NE states on my ARRL Year of the State QSO party certificate!….

N4PN – Thanks for the great work to get this all together… Great time!! Again just more fun than one person should be allowed to have in one weekend. Tks to mobiles with NE1QP-15, K1KI-14 AND WA1Z-13 keading the way in contacts… Ole Pal, K1PIG going out again to complete sweep with Franklin ME.. Only “sweep call-wise” – W1UE worked 10 times.

N5HMH – Can’t wait for next year

N6KI – Decided to work 5 contests that were all occurring this weekend to liven things up! Logging turned out to be a real challenge so I used modified IARU module of my CT Logging program to log stations working NEQP, 7QP, INQP, ARI and MARAC! Will let contest sponsors figure out my score!

N6QZS – 20 mtrs not vry good – nor 40

N7EIE – 20 was much weaker Sunday, I’ll try again next year.

N8II – Despite some good 20M openings, I found things very slow Sunday from 14Z-1815Z when 20 opened to NE. My mult was not good due to trying to work all 4 QP’s Saturday, and I missed a lot of the mobiles on 20 while the band was closed. Even the big guns were barely audible at best on 20 until the Es in afternoon.

N9FN – Is there a certificate for “High Score Check Log?” Station was Icom 756 Pro and SG-500 amp to half wave inverted V antennas with the center point at about 50 feet from the N9FN Mobile Hamshack. The 80 meter antenna ends were NW to SE, and the 40 meter antenna ends were NE to SW. Used the 80 dipole for 20 with the LDG-AT1000 tuner. Power supplied by a Honda EU-2000i generator.

ND3R – Had a great time. Worked all but 13 total counties. Would also like to thank WA1Z again for changing counties for me to get Grafton, NH when I asked! See you all next year.

NF4A – Had to work part of the time so missed a couple of hard to get mults….It was nice to actually make contest contacts on 15 and 10 meters for a change. Wish more stations would have checked 15 and 10 they were open both Saturday and Sunday at least from here to 1-land. Had to convince several stations to QSY to 10…they said it was closed…..NOT! Thanks to all the mobiles….they make the contest what it is!

NG7Z – Not much time available this year to participate. I was just happy to make a few contacts and hand out WA to the few I worked.

NO2D – Operated QRP @ 4.9 watts this year. Wanted to beat my low power score from last year. Short by three contacts, but more multipliers, so turned in a better score. Thanks to all the NE ops who pulled my weak signal out of the mud. Always enjoy NEQP.

NS6T – Thanks for hosting it. I got my first Rhode Island and Connecticut QSO during the NEQP.

W1IBQ – It was fun working the NE stations and the NE activity was excellent. I did not think I would have much time to participate but one QSO led to another and another. You guys sure did a nice job in getting stations active from around NE.

W1MD -Thought there would be more activity from more of the counties, but it was FUN to see everyone on up north. Worked quite a few on 4 bands.10m opened late Sunday afternoon but no one was listening.

W1SKU – I just enjoy working stations. I am from Chelmsford, MA, so I really enjoy working back into NE from here in Michigan.

W4AWF – 1st shot at the NEQP, had fun!

W4JHU – Thanks for a great contest.

W4UCZ – Thanks to all for putting on a great party!

W5ESE – I had a ball. Thanks for sponsoring the New England area QSO Party! I had fun, despite the poor propagation.

W5JNP – This year contest had to contend with some very bad storms here in Fort Worth. I was not able to meet my goal of improving my score from last year mostly because weather and poor propagation. After working the big dogs there wasn’t much left. Several times I ran without a single return. Several times for over 20-30 minutes. Hopefully next year I’ll improve my score and so will conditions. Thanks for running the contest and also thanks for my certificate from last year’s 2008 contest.

W7GKF – However, we in 7-land are very glad that 7QP and NEQP overlap. We are insured of all the W1 multipliers, and I would guess that you guys get all the 7’s as well. Now if only we could get the VE’s to all be on the same weekend!!!

W7MAP/5 – What the heck was with propagation? I heard Ethiopian stations louder than Sagadahoc and Merrimack counties? I am very happy my life didn’t depend on making QSO’s in this QSO Party! I suppose having a SSN equal to the “Square Root of Minus One” had a little to do with things in general but the the 24 hours of Texas Turd Floaters we had, complete with lightening from the Styx River, may have dented our score just a trifle.What fun guys! Lets do it again next year; only next time someone warm up the Palos Verdes Sun Dancers- or those damned Anoles in Texas.

W8JRK – I really enjoyed the NE Qso Party. I found all operators very courteous. Pleased with the number of stations that were on the air. Most enjoyable!

W9QL – Thanks for another fun contest. I did much better than last year, thanks to using a second computer for logging other contests that were going on at the same time. Conditions were not too bad, which helped drive my score up. Thanks to the mobiles, especially N1SV/M, who also helped my score by activating a number of new counties for me. See you next year.

W9RE – Great activity, just wish it didn’t conflict with the Indiana QSO Party.

W0MRZ – I just got back into ham radio about a year and a half ago after a brief pause of 43 years. For the past half year, I’ve been getting myself up to speed on CW and ‘contesting’, all using just QRP on 20m[only 2.5 W] and an indoor shortened vertical dipole about 8′ high, with everything sitting in the entryway of my house. I’m hoping to set up a QRP stn for our club effort on Field Day in June and this has been my ‘test bed’.

W0PQ – K1 & G5RV, 40M OK first eve but poor 2nd eve. No conflicts with 7QP contest. I worked both. Kudos to contest sponsors and all participants.

W0QE/m – As usual I had a lot of fun operating from 4 different states. See http://www.bnk.com/w0qe/Toyota_4Runner_setup.html and look at the bottom of the page for what I was using.

W0TLE – Had a great time this year

WA1FCN – how’s this for a murphy story…….. On tuesday before test my lifelong back problem flared up putting me in poor physical shape. On thursday before test computer chip in rig for computer control died. Saturday of qso party sever thunderstorm with tornado watch came directly through my area takeing me off air. Oh well Sunday was nice. Entered a different category from usual single op low power. Hey all you mobiles great job. Believe me we entrants do enjoy your trips giving out qso’s. Watching packet screen was fun too. Very Very rare I use packet in any contest.

WA4JA/m – I worked the NEQP while maily operating the MARAC Phone QSO Party in MS, TN & AL. I would have tried harder but the floods and constant rain was a bit of a hinderance to mobile ops. Also, this was paper logged while on the road. Thanks and good to hear some activity from the northeast!

WA5SWN – I worked all six New England states!

WA6KHK – Lots of fun! I should have started earlier in the contest!

WA7JHQ – Great fun, but didn’t have to go up on the roof a single time and the computer (operator) only messed up a couple of times. Thanks to the great ears of the mobile ops I was able to make a personal best.

WB4ZPF – Another great party,thanks to all who put it together.

WB8JUI – Nice of 15 meters to put in an appearance this year!

WC4V – Had fun this year running mobile, while visiting family. I just wish I hadn’t forgot to take a key!

WC5D/m – I was running in MARAC CW Contest. I remember calling W1MX & WA1Z/M maybe one more, but guess those int he log heard the LA mult & they are welcome to it. Next year probably Okla (if on the same weekend).

WC7CW/K7BG – Lots of fun working the great ops from NE. Couldn’t seem to get counties from some stations, they either weren’t aware of the NEQP or they thought since I was CQing the 7QP that I didn’t need their county.

WN1GIV(N4BP) – Had a blast using my 50+ year old (1955) Novice call from PLYMA.

DX Stations

CU2JT – It was hard to decide wether to do the MARAC, The Illinois QP, New England QSO Party or the 7QP… I have two versions of my home made logger, which allows me to run two contests simultaneously so I decided to concentrate on 7QP on Saturday and the NEQP on Sunday. One county better than last year but not as many contacts.

DL4FN – Station: Icom IC-7400, 100W, dipole

DL5AWI – The condx was not the best, but much stations from NE on the air. I hope to have time next year again!

G4PIQ – Spent a few minutes working folks on 40CW from tiny home station Rig : K2/100. 100W. Ant : G5RV, one leg @ 8m, other twisted round garden fence!

HA2MN – It has been nice to come back this year. The propagation, especially on 40 m, made it easy. 20 m showed no sign of opening for New England in the first hours of the party. I thought the last year’s misery would happen again, but not. In the second part 20 m opened up after sunset so some more Qs could have been completed. The weakness of my station is the antenna obviously. In addition the metropolitan noise could be mentioned. I enjoyed very much to meet ‘new to log’ stations and counties too. Thanks to Organizers for this great event again. Many thanks for Qs, see you next year! Rig TS-530SP 100 W into a end-fed 21 mtrs long wire above flat roof.

VK4TT – The bands here “Yuck”

New England Stations

AE1P – Had a lot of fun from my brother’s camp in Coos cnty!! Hope to do it agn next yr!

AE1T –
My wife and I were away until late Sunday afternoon. So, I had a little over an hour of operating time. What a blast to be the focus of a pile up! Must be Grafton was a new one for a bunch of folks.

AF1T – I operated a total of about 7-1/2 hours – missed Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday (busy installing antennas on a friend’s tower). Not many DX multipliers, and I missed a supposed 10/15 Es opening. Anyways, I was glad to represent Merrimack County.

AK1W(K5ZD) – SSB, especially on 20m, was amazing. Could always scare up big rates there. Lots of casual guys who were willing to provide a QSO and did it very efficiently. 15m was wide open both days, but no one was home. Couldn’t get any responses on SSB, but a steady rate on CW. Why is that? Its almost like people just don’t expect the bands to be open any more. Got on for the last 15 minutes with the goal of finding N4PN on 75m SSB for band/mode #10. First though, decided to call CQ on 40m. Wow! Worked 52 stations in 15 minutes!! Went to 75m with 30 seconds to go, but no luck finding Paul. Worked all states except DE. Most of the mults came from working DX in the ARI contest. If you ever wanted to practice running, this was the weekend to do it!

K1BV – My personal best score in this contest. Noted lots of YCCC calls.

K1DG/m -Busy with other projects Saturday so I missed the first section of the contest. Threw the 706 in the car and dragged out the mobile whip Sunday afternoon around 4 PM and managed to hit 5 nearby counties and hand out 150 or 200 QSOs, mostly 20 CW, but a few on SSB. Activity seemed pretty good, even working guys when my antenna went intermittent for the last hour or so. Passed N1SV/m who was stopped in the breakdown lane on 93 South in Andover. Looked like he was changing bands/antennas or something. I was cruising along in the left lane, or I would have stopped. I figured that if he needed assistance he could raise W1UE easily enough on 20 CW (or use his cellphone to call AAA). Operated in MERNH from the breakdown lane at a nice high spot on 93 in Manchester. A nice State Police officer (who looked about 12 years old) pulled up and asked if my car was broken down. I said “Nope, just working the radio”. That apparently was enough for him, and he left me alone.

K1EO – Best QSO was W0QE/M, worked him from Idaho, Utah, and Colorado in the contest from the same chair, I never moved!!! That guy gets around. Good Mults late on Sunday on 40 M. Thanks to everyone who played.

K1ESE – Many thanks to the volunteers and organizers. Lots of fun.

K1FTK – Looking forward to next year for sure…

K1GQ – Interesting propagation. Nice to have more than one active band at a time. I tried too hard to get 15 over 100 Qs and missed the 10m opening.

K1IB – I was hoping to reach 1000 QSOs, but having missed the opening two hours I fell a bit short. I caught part of a ten meter opening Sunday afternoon working as far west as Oklahoma, and found some activity on 15m as well. Couldn’t find a Hawaii or DC multiplier nor seven Canadian mults. Finding Arkansas and the Dakotas took a l-o-n-g time.

K1LGQ – The contest was a hummer and I loved doing it. I made many QSOs.

K1LPS -Good contest. CU in the next one. Maybe as a mobile/rover.

K1MMH – I had a blast!! I wasn’t on for the entire event due to the demands of the mundane – like housework and grocery shopping! :(((

K1MVY/K2KQ – Personal best by a lot!

K1TTT – Lower QSO count than last year, but more multipliers so score came out just a little bit higher. We did have some nice runs on 20m rtty, mostly from ARI participants in Europe giving 14 multipliers in addition to the 101 two pointers. We did get WAS and 64 countries, mostly Europe and Caribbean/South America, very little Asia… not even a JA even though I did hear one on 20m RTTY but too weak to work.

KA1WPM – My first contest — Lots of fun!

KB1NH/WB1EDI – We had several issues that prevented the full participation that we did last year. But i did get one other op over to try his hand at some HF contesting. (his first ever HF contacts) I hope to get some more involved for FD. I even bumped my run speed on CW up to a wopping 18 and except for a few pileups i held my own. next time I’ll go for 20 wpm. I just dont know how the DXpedition crew can get one call out of 1000 when i have trouble with one out of two.

KC1V – The party is more fun each year! I spent more time on the air this year, maybe 7 or 8 hours, and really enjoyed it. The rig was my old Kenwood TS-930SAT and I had a TA-33 and a dipole for antennas. Conditions seemed good, at least I couldn’t keep up with the logging at times! Looking forward to next year.

KO1H – Had a great time and a new high score for me this year.

N1ABY – Condx were not nearly as good as last year- we need LOTS more sun spots! See you next year!

N1AIA – Two watts and a sloping dipole for a couple of hours of NEQP fun. Wish I had more time for it. Maybe next year.

N1DC – Thanks to Tom K1KI and the NEQP team for another great QSO party. This contest is defintely a blast! I set two goals this year : # 1 try to exceed 65K points. # 2 at a minimum improve my Norfolk County MA record of 59,280 set back in 2007. I exceeded both by an unexpected wide margin. Conditions were great on Saturday and more challenging on Sunday. Overall I was very happy with my run rates and worked about 95% of my QSO’s via CQ. I was surprised since I normally focus on S&P. I worked N4PN on 5 bands CW and 1 SSB. Worked N4DW, K1GU/4, N4AII and KU8E on 5 bands all CW. Special thanks to KU8E who gave me a heads up on a 10M opening. This allowed me to pick up 19 stations on what I thought was a dead band. I called CQ there a few times before the heads up with no results. These were my first 10M QSO’s in the past 2 years!! Thanks to all the DX stations that called me and were patient enough to wait for QRM to subside. Special thanks to OH2XX who called at 2350 on 40M Sunday for a new multiplier. Worked many USA stations of the back of my beam trying to generate some EU QSO’s. Never heard anything from the Caribbean. Lots of comments about good SSB runs by other stations but I didn’t experience them. I got a few good signal reports on 20 SSB but only 1 response from 20 minutes of calling CQ. 100W works so much better on CW! Thanks for all the QSO’s!

N1FD/K2TE -Had a number of commitments get in the way to prevent a serious effort. I found it easy to get good runs going so I made the most of 6+ hours of operating. My biggest surprise was a 150/hour rate on 40 SSB. Sure is a different band now that the BC stns are gone. Managed to get all but 3 states (HI, ND, NM) but fell flat with only 4 Canadian provinces. The ARI, 7QP and IQP contests kept the activity level high and made some interesting exchanges.

N1NN – Surely had fun this past weekend.

N1QLL – My goal was to work Hawaii and, in getting my 50th state, earn W.A.S. Once I saw propagation was not good enough, I gave up. See you next year!

N1QLM – 20w battery powered, rookie

N1ORK – Portable from NH for only 1.5 hrs. Lots of fun!

N1WXQ – Thanks for a good weekend.

NJ1T – Wow I would never have believed this contest could be so much fun. Everybody was very kind and patient. http://www.thedeafdxer.com

W1ACT – W1ACT’s “Team HAMCOW” had Hams from 4 states (MA, RI, CT, & NY) join us on Martha’s Vineyard for our 17th consecutive year setting up portable at the Gay Head Lighthouse. The participation in the NEQP was definitely up from past years, and it showed in our QSO rates and final score, which was triple of last year! Our entire station setup was done in 3 hours with a 4 element tri-band Yagi on a 30 ft. tower, 5 element tri-band Yagi on a 45 ft. tower, phased 40 Meter dipole array, a full sized 40 Meter vertical with elevated radials, and an 80 Meter dipole. We operated Field Day style on generator power and gave our new generator with its auxiliary fuel tank a good run. Having amplifiers really helped bust the pileups. We were able to keep our last station on the air until 5:30 PM Sunday before we finished breaking down to catch the ferry back home. And let’s not forget all of the great food that wads devoured throughout the weekend! Please check out our photos and setup video at: http//hamcow.net

W1DMD – Wasn’t in it for any special reason but thought maybe I could give a rather rare county to a few chaps.

W1EBI -More QSO’s than my three other NEQP’s combined. I decided on a CW-only effort that started with a big (for me) 96-hour. I’m sure many DX QSO’s thought we were in ARI, but at least the activity level was good. This was a chance to run, run, run, so I only did a modest amount of S&P. A few VE provinces were missed, but it was pleasant to get called by WY and ND. Never heard HI or SD. N1MM logged perfectly, but I scrapped the three-character exchange almost immediately in favor of the full five-character version after several repeat requests. Had to miss five hours in the middle of Sunday, but it was all fun.

W1ECH – Would have liked to spend more time because activity seemed pretty good. It is always a boit confusing when we run into QSO parties from other states, of course!

W1END – …and a good time was had by all, certainly me. Thanks to everyone.

W1EQ -I did a bit better than last year, but well below my Windham Cty CT. record of 81,760 set in 2003. It’s nice to be the “hunted”

W1HIS – For the first time in any contest, I spent most of my time running. SSB was tough without DVK. I missed one state (HI) and eight provinces (AB, LB, NF, NU, NWT, PEI, SK, YT), but was pleasantly surprised by the number (35) of DX mults. I wish there were an entry category for SA (Single Antenna), LA (Low Antenna), WA (Wire Antenna), or SLWA (Single Low Wire Antenna). Single wire antenna used for all bands: 21 m long & 6 m high <http://www.yccc.org/Articles/W1HIS/GettingABigDXSignalOn160-10.pdf>

W1JQ – Mults were 29 DX, 50 states’n’provs. For the US, missed HI, AK, ND, SD, and AR. (AR? Why? Since when is AR hard?) My best NEQP yet. Ended with a fantastic 15 minutes on 40 phone, running 200+/hour. I should have done that an hour earlier… but I was slogging things out on CW, figuring I’d have a somewhat higher chance of AR or the Dakotas calling in. Slightly different strategy than in the past. In the past, I’ve always tried (in vain) to get a county sweep. I’ve never even come close. So I gave up, and spent almost *all* my time running. Didn’t work as much NE, particularly the mobiles, but made lots more Qs. I generally plan for 40 to be the “money band” in domestic contests, and this was no exception. 15 was pretty good Sunday afternoon; heard it was good in the morning, too, but I wasn’t on. Nice to have HA7RY call in on 40 for a mult Sunday afternoon. He was louder than any of the domestic stations… As always–put in too much time. The rain helped–I had planned to take Sunday afternoon off and go for a bike ride.W1KX – First time with new logging program. Good to be back on NEQP.

W1NG – Wasn’t able to put in a big effort this year.

W1NY/KB1NWH – Great pipe-line to IN, awsome DX on sunday

W1OP/K1PLX – Sorry I was only able to operate one day. Hope to someday see NEQP, 7QP & INQP have the same hours. Station location was Johnston, Rhode Island.

W1PN – Next year I’ll have my antennas in shape and will have a year’s experience with my software defined radio which works great but requires more experience at the controls than I had during the contest.

W1TO – Had lots of fun in this one from home and K1TTT.

W1UE – Another great NEQP! CW was a bottomless pit- so2R just kept cranking them out at a rate that I couldn’t match on SSB, taking into consideration the point differential. Congrats to W1XX for a nice score. CW seemed to be a bottomless pit this weekend – it just never stopped. Rate was so good it made operating SSB almost an afterthought; SSB was really only good for the last 7 or 8 mults that were workable. Only mults missed were the Canadians, with PEI being the major miss. Its also nice to have the ARI contest going on, as many country mults were worked by giving out ARI reports in addition to the NEQP report. About half the 15M QSOs were QSYs from other bands, as were 2/3 of the 10M Qs. Thanks to all that moved for me. While there were many, many stations worked on 4 bands, a few on 5 bands, Paul N4PN was the only station in the log with 10 Qs. QSYs made the difference. Both 10 and 15 were open better than the QSO totals; it seemed that activity on those bands was lacking. Thanks to all that made this a great running of the NEQP. Many thanks to Tony K1KP for the use of his great station.
W1UJ – Started late, 2000z Sunday. I was ‘fresh meat’ Ran hard for the first 2 hours.

W1VIV – What an enjoyable contest! Everybody wants to talk to New England. Looking forward to next year.

W1WEF/m -While visiting our son in Bristol Vt this weekend I managed a couple hours to put about 150 calls in the log from ADD Addison county Vt. Curious as to whether anyone else operated from ADD? On the way back to CT I gave out a few Qs from BERKS,FRA, HMP,and HMD

W1WIU – Glad to hear lot’s of activity from RI !! Meet many friends from other state QSO Parties. Thanks for helping to make the NE QSO Party so much fun. See you all next year!

W1XX – Usual fun operating the NEQP, as non-NewEnglanders seem to enjoy working W1s. That’s good for us as the Qs keep coming. Again there was no lack of callers on 20 SSB. Missed the usual VE provinces (NT NF LB YT PE NU) but got all states on CQs including 5 from AK and 3 from HI. DX was a bit sparse. Signals from mobiles continue to amaze me as they break pileups, inlcuding the bicycle mobile CU next year.

WA1VIL – A fun event, just wish I had more time to operate and could have found some stations on 15 and 10. Its a kick to be on the receiving end of a (mini) pileup for a change. I promise to change over to a computer based log for next year…well anyhow I’ll try.

WA1Z/m -I upgraded the antenna system a bit by adding a support harness attached to the roof rack to support beefier beefier antennas (Hustler resonators, some with DXE capacity hats, on Hustler masts). Also brought my K3 along. The K3’s noise blanker is a significant improvement over the NB in the 746PRO, which is now my backup NEQP rig. Almost no distortion and handled a variety of pops, pulses and egine noise.

WB1Z/KK1W – I had fun again this year, not as much time as I would have liked to spend but four hours is better than zero hours! Thanks for all the work on this contest, its appreciated.

WW1M/m – Camping at NearFest and staying up most of the night partying and playing music is probably not the best way to be in shape for the contest the next day. We were not as serious this year and did a lot of sightseeing, but still managed 10 Maine counties. Dan N0HF had an excellent run on 20CW Sunday afternoon. We were stuck on 20 due to antenna troubles, but Dan’s new K3 played well. Wait ’til next year! Awesome effort by Bob, WA1Z!

W2JU/1 – Almost missed RI. I had a 91 hour on 40, which is a record for my current station. Thanks for all the QSOs.