Writeup | New England Scores | Scores Outside New England | Breakdowns of Top Stations | Soapbox
W/VE Stations Outside New England
AC3MR – G90 Radio 20 watts (end feed antenna 65 ft). I enjoyed my time hunting for counties.
K2MN – Used two indoor fan dipoles and 90 Watts.
K3TW – “Many thanks for another very enjoyable New England QSO Party.”
K7BIK – Operating from Lincoln County, OR, South Beach State Park, also as POTA activation
KB0AEZ – What a great QSO party, thank you!!
KD9WIF – It will be great to have QSL confirmation on QRZ, LoTW loggers to apply QSLs for awards.
KE0TT – K3/10 at 5 watts to wires. Thanks for the Fun! and for your copy of my QRPeeps. 73, Dan
KF3G – Thank you for the 2025 New England QSO Party
KJ9C/m – Crappy day. Shoulder pain cut it all short. Hard to drive and log or send CW.
KX7L – Another fun outing at Belfair State Park in Mason County. The weather cooperated, propagation wasn’t too bad, and I managed to break 300 QSO’s. As with last years Salmon Run at this spot, I posted the activation to the POTA web site, and had quite a few POTA stations call. (honest RST’s, and the tell-tale “dit-dit” at the end of the QSO.) The one problem that got a bit worse here was getting a county out of the 7-land POTA chasers. Many seemed confused when I asked “UR COUNTY”
N0CK – not a lot of fun. Way too noisy. Thanks to those who made it happen.
N7AME – Not many NE stations to work because propagation opened after NE went to 40 and 40 was closed to us for several hours, Great some stations stayed around when we (wesr coast) go 40. Thanks for being there.
N7EPD – Haven’t had numbers this low in 7QP for over 5 years. Nothing on 10M and listened to stations in the south on 15M work east coast stations I couldn’t hear. This is the peak of the solar cycle
N7ITU – After participating in 23 NEQPs from New England, this year I was an outsider. Despite conditions and my compromised station (QRP to low wires), I was pleased to work all six New England states. A heartfelt thank-you to all the ops who pulled me out of the noise. Even the big guns were not strong here, so I can only imagine how light my signals were. Hoping for more oomph and greater success next year.
NO2D – One of my favorite events as I once lived in New England.
VE7BGP – The QSO parties were a lot of fun this weekend, Band conditions were poor.
VE7IAD – Thanks for a fun contest.
WA1FCN – After two years just coasting along enjoying the sights and sounds of New England, I decided to get serious. Gosh but conditions were terrible. Glad I was around for another year. Thank you guys in the mobiles you make the party a success.73 BoB in Dixie
WN4AFP – At 2000z, it was time to move my attention to the NewEngQP because the prop between New Eng and SC is very good on 20m with the hopes of 40m joining in later in the contest. 20m remained good on Saturday and finally I could hear and work NE stations on 40m around 2330z. There were several mobile ops that really helped my score, these included NZ1U, K1JB, K1NZ, N1QY and K1IB. I worked 62 of the of the 68 counties. I missed MADUK, MAHMP, MEPIS, MESAG, VTORA and VTRUT. How could I have missed the populated county of VTRUT?
My contest goal was to equal or exceed my 2024 score of 38,676 with 66 mults and hopefully a repeat win. Things were looking good until a massive thunderstorm forced me to QRT around 0130z for the rest of the contest. I was only able to operate from 1630z until 2330z on Sunday. I did my best with limited time and poor 40/80m propagation. It was nice to work many of my NE friends during the contest including W1WBB. Congrats to K4QS, WA1FCN, WN1GIV, N8II and other New Eng QP perennial top scorers. I hope to give it another shot next year!
WA1FMM – Thanks for QSO party.
WB2FUE – Thanks you to all New England operators!!
WQ6X – I spent so much time behind the scenes for the NX6T 1st-place win (and sleep catching-up on), I had little time for NEQP on Saturday. While band conditions SUCKED both days, at least I was HEARD on Saturday. Sunday, no amount of frantic calls from the Ramona QRP operation, except ONE QSO on 15m @17:35z. Read all about this at: http://WQ6X.Blogspot.com.
New England Stations
AE1P – Elecraft K3S, ALS-1306, F12 C19XR @ 55′, 40m loop, 80m doublet. Participation seemed down a bit…condx’s stateside seemed down also…First time in several years I was able to be joined by my son… Between his working 7 days a work and the Guard,I don’t get to play radio with him often… that was by far my highlight for the weekend…
AF1T – Conditions were moistly poor, but improved late Sunday on 15 and 10 meters.
K1DC – Well.,. that was… umm… a thing. Operating LP vs. HP and I decided to take the somewhat ‘more fun’ path of HP operation — I’m sure glad I did! Weather and solar, conspired to thwart my efforts this year. The solar Kp index was over 4 and into minor storm territory. The sunspot count was down to a rather low 77. Ultimately, 10m never opened for me the entire weekend – a great disappointment. 15m was only marginally better with a paltry 30 Qs over the weekend. 20m was the star this time with approx. 70% of my Qs happening there. Through late Sat. PM that forced a pause of a few hours with disconnected antennas. The lightning was pretty, though. hihi
All bands were very noisy with S7 levels at times. This, combined with the thunder-static made hearing/working the weaker stations quite a challenge. Took my first look at the contest scoreboard and saw KI1P with a seemingly insurmountable lead; WA1ZYX in second, and myself close behind. I slowly closed the gap and by the 1AM shutdown I was slightly ahead of WA1ZYX. KI1P had roughly 2x my score but it did not appear to have changed since I first looked. As Sunday (originally posted as ‘Saturday’) wore on it became clear the KI1P score was static so I set a goal to overtake them and hopefully, make 1000 Qs. I was able to pass KI1P by late in the afternoon and finally reached 1000 Qs with a bit more than an hour to go. YIPPIE! only during band-switches to get the lay of the land before starting a run. It was generally pretty easy to find, and hold, a run spot with only a handful of QSB or HF net induced QSYs. I did have a few good spurts with a high rate of 240 in a 10m window, and 112 hour. DX was practically non-existent although I did get a surprise call from a single VK and a 3 bander with OM2VL. I did happen to work TX9A on 15m early on Sunday but it was outside NEQP hours so it didn’t count – bummer. I haven’t yet tallied my county coverage but I’m sure I’m missing quite a few although I did snag one of the 30 hams in MADUK. For some reason I found the exchange ‘MA ESS’ awkward — I’m pretty sure in the heat of a good run I may have blurted out ‘ME ESS’ a few times. Luckily there is no ‘ESS’ in Maine so hopefully my contact noticed and asked for a repeat. My apologies for the broken Qs. Conditions induced frustrations and long periods of listening to myself calling CQ it was overall an enjoyable weekend playing radio! Thanks to all the ops for the Qs and especially Tony, K1KP for the generous use of his station! EQUIPMENT: 6400 + Power Genius XL
K1EP/m – I had not made plans for this mobile outing as the weather was going to make an impact. I ended up doing a few hours Saturday afternoon and evening, as the weather held up for a while. Due to the ridiculous hours of the contest, I skipped the last 3 hours on Saturday, as it is not fun driving around with an 80M antenna late on a Saturday night on back roads avoiding drunks in the rain. This contest should align with the other contests, such as the FQP and end at a reasonable hour on Saturday night. Ending at 1AM local is not reasonable for a mobile. Sunday I headed to Maine and hit a few counties with overcast skies and occasional downpours. The station worked well, hardly any issues, and any issues were minor, solvable, and usually self-inflicted. Running off of a large Li battery makes it easier on your car. Just remember to turn off your lights when parked. Since I was single op without a driver, I could only operate half the time, but still had some great runs. Unlike the FQP, there is only one mobile category. Again, time to get with the times. Due to the time constraints, I only hit 11 counties. I need to plan a more efficient single op route next time. Thanks to all the stations that followed me, especially the DX: DL3DXX, DL5AXX, and OM2VL. I had a few stations send me QSOB4 without copying my exchange. If you are going to participate in a QSO party with mobileops, just work them. Stop with this useless QSOB4 nonsense. Conditions on 15M turned out to be a dud, compared to last weekend. I didn’t even try 10M. I also apologize to some ops, as my computer had a small keyboard and I sometimes hit the wrong keys or two at once. It is not optimum operating from a car!! Tnx for the Qs.
K1IB/m – My NEQP 2025 score is the best I’ve accomplished in recent years of Rover operating on county lines (with only myself in the car, so I could not operate and drive simultaneously). Operations went smoothly, aside from some small glitches with electrical connectors and with N1MM’s fussy county line setup. I traveled over 230 miles, stopping at five locations touching eight VT and NH counties. My final stop included rare Essex County, Vermont beginning at about 5 p.m Sunday.
Activity was amazing at the beginning Saturday–I was working busy pileups on 40 and 20 meters–but later in the evening things calmed down. I experienced brief bursts of activity during the day Sunday, when I presume I was spotted but often I had to slog along. Activity picked up again in the late afternoon Sunday as I was operating from VTCAL/NHGRA and then from VTESS/VTCAL.
I thought propagation on 15 meters was quite good, especially to Europe though few operators there seemed interested in the NEQP. LY5A was particularly loud on 15. 20 meters was my busiest band, followed by 40 and 15. Making contacts on 80 meters was difficult perhaps because my mobile antenna has significant negative gain on that band. I am amazed every year that a small mobile antenna performs so well on 40m and up. Setup: Yaesu FT-897 transceiver and a Hustler mobile antenna on a trunk lid mount.
K1JB+K1JB/m – Started out at 4 pm local at home with a nice run on 20 and then the thunderstorm came. Was off the air for a couple of hours and when I got back on, it just wasn’t the same. I did have a nice run on 40, but by 11 pm, I was ready to quit for the night. I agree with K1EP that the Saturday hours are not good – 1:00 am is just too late, especially since I needed to get up early Sunday to be in some northern counties in Maine when the contest restarted.
I left the house early Sunday into heavy rain and fog and an hour into the drive I was beginning to question the wisdom of continuing. But the weather got a little better so it wasn’t too bad putting on and taking off my Hamsticks on a roof-mounted mag mount at each stop. I did six counties (two of which were on one county line) as a stationary SO mobile. Conditions weren’t as good as I hoped, but they were decent and better than last year. Stayed mostly on 20 CW, but at K1ESE’s suggestion, I tried 15 for awhile and had some luck. This year I was able to access spots and self-spot which helped a little. But I was also spotted several times by other operators from out of NE and a few from within NE. Thanks to all of them. It was definitely a long day (drove 8 hours and operated 4 which is not very efficient, but the best I could do), and at 84, I’m definitely getting too old to be trapsing around the state. But, yes, I will probably do it again – health and weather permitting.
K1KI – Not a great weekend here with a T-storm at the start. Had an issue a week or so ago with either a N1MM+ update or Win10 update or both. All my N1MM settings were lost and didn’t have time to get things back together. I was able to get radio control working but no CW. So it was all SSB for the first time – and I worked a lot of new stations and missed a lot of familiar CW calls… In thr end, too many other things going on so I was limited to a few hour-long AE1P – Elecraft K3S, ALS-1306, F12 C19XR @ 55′, 40m loop, 80m doublet.
K1MQ – Lightning storms stopped Sat. night operations
K1NZ/m – First of all, thank you to everyone who put up with my lousy CW and your patience with repeats and fills. It’s definitely not my forte, but I’m trying to improve. Also, thank you again to my friend Matt who agreed to be my driver. Having done VTQP back in February, I thought I had chased the gremlins out of the mobile setup, however that wasn’t the case. 20m CW still caused a couple of winkeyer freakouts, but they were much more manageable to deal with. The contest started off pretty well. I had some good success on 20 CW and SSB during most of the afternoon and early evening.
The problems started when I switched to 40m. When things worked, they worked great! Other times, it seemed as if the ATAS suddenly detuned. The SWR would jump and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Sometimes, manually tuning it up/down a little would help. Other times, reaching back and wiggling the coax/tapping the radio would help. Often, it was just hosed. I pushed through until we stopped for dinner around 8PM in Stowe.
After dinner I tried to do some quick troubleshooting, but apparently made it worse. I made a couple more Qs, but had a real bear of a time getting the rig/antenna to be happy. I had Matt pull over and tried some more troubleshooting. No luck. That being said, I thought I’d try 80 and hopefully limp along the rest of the night. I got the 80m antenna on the car but when I tried to send a test carrier, the radio shut off. Tried it again, same outcome. At this point, I decided that it wasn’t practical to rip the car apart at 9:45PM on the side of route 100 in northern Vermont, so I decided to cut the night short, skip VTWAS and VTORA and head back to the airbnb.
On Sunday morning, I ripped the car apart and replaced the FT-100D with the FT-857D I had purchased about a month ago. Besides a little bit of a learning curve on how to operate the radio (this m0r0n didn’t read the manual), things went much more smoothly. The winkeyer stopped blowing up. The ATAS operated as expected. Unfortunately, 20 didn’t seem as open as it was on Saturday, but 15 produced some good runs. After a great dinner at Shain’s of Maine, I hopped on
40m for the rest of the trip home. It was a fun time and hopefully next year we can keep Murphy at bay.
K1SEC – Good activity, decent band conditions
K1TTW – QRP was tough going and I will not do it again, but the most memorable moment for the contest was captured the evening before after setting up my portable hex beam. This beautiful rainbow appeared.
K1VUT – This contest was a character builder for me. Conditions were bad, at my QTH they were bad on Saturday and worse on Sunday. I usually operate SO2R, but half of the Flex6700 went deaf last Wednesday. So, I set up the other half as radio 2, and an IC-7610 as radio 1. Most of the way through Saturday the rest of the Flex6700 also went deaf. Perhaps I could call myself a SO1.5R entry? Not really, I also lost time trying to get the Flex6700 working again while operating the IC-7610.
Considering the propagation conditions, I found 10 and 15 meters about as I expected. I did get a 5 band sweep with Rick N1DC. I kept checking 10 meters from time to time, and evidently Rick was doing the same thing. Nice job Rick! 20 meters was mostly better in the afternoon and evening, 40 and 80 were good for me. I only checked the online scoreboard 3 or 4 times, only once during contest time (Sunday afternoon during the doldrums). At the end of Saturday, I could see Ed K1TR was far enough ahead of me that the only way I could catch him would be if he took Sunday completely off. Nice job Ed, as always! Antennas: TX38 tribander, 40, 80 – lots of wires
K1VWQ – I had fun for what I operated. I missed a few hours on Saturday for family chores. I also had to work Sunday, so I missed a large part of the daytime hours. I was able to salvage some time after that late Sunday afternoon on 40 meters. Thanks to K1KI and “helpers” for another great year. 73 all CYA next year
K1WAS – It was tough going, as we changed too many things at once for this year’s contest. Still had fun! Thank you.
KA1DBE – Thanks for hearing my QRP sigs! Had fun! 73/72
KA1WPM – A casual contest this year. Started off with a severe thunderstorm warning, so everything was disconnected. Concentrated on CW this year. I’m’ not confident enough to run in CW mode, so that pretty much limits me to other contesters and fewer mults. First time I contacted a DX station in the NEQP. Also the first time I got Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard all in the same contest. See you next year.
KB1VUN – Just a Sunday drive, conditions were pretty poor.
KC1QEM – Despite the overall less than optimal conditions, especially on the higher bands , I was able to achieve the best score in my 4th year of working this contest. Here on the Cape we avoided the storms that plagued many and actually had a pretty nice day on Sunday. A concert and dinner on Sunday afternoon took away some time but it was my fault for not planning correctly. The lack of DX stations was sad as I always enjoy a good DX contact. I did get to work TX9A but that was before the contest started. Managed to work 52 separate New England counties with clean sweep in Mass & RI. Thanks to WJ1S for operating from the Vineyard and to ND1L on Nantucket for the SSB contact. I would also say thanks to Eric, AJ4LN , for spotting me on more than one occasion. Hope everyone had a good time. Now if I can only figure out how that leaderboard works and how to track mobiles I may be able to improve again next year…
KC1UER – Just got in for the last hour of contest
N1ABY – Kind of poor condx. Worked most of my contacts on 40, but still managed to work 41 of 68 NE counties.
N1EP – Great time in spite of poor band conditions.
N1DC – Thanks to the entire NEQP crew for another great event. I had limited hours Saturday due to a band concert and birthday celebration. I planned to get going around 8pm EDT but an approaching thunderstorm forced a delayed start. Finally got going around 9:30. Tried really hard to get to 100K but fell short due to lack of BIC. STATION: IC-7610 @ 100W with N1MM Logger operating Unassisted. Antennas: HyGain Explorer 14 at 35ft, My Antenna 80-10 EFHW at 25 ft. This was 95% RUN and 5% S&P. I’m happy with my results considering the conditions.
I encountered some very strange propagation, especially on 15M. I struggled with many stations in the mud at S0 requiring high AF gain, tweaking RF gain and using NR. When finishing a QSO like that I have to remember to reduce the AF gain immediately after the weak station QSO. The next guy was often 25dB over 9. I had my ears blown off more than once this weekend.
The best results were on 20 and 40M. 15M was a bit of disappointment. 10M was almost completely dead with only 5 QSO’s. I spent at least 30 minutes Sunday on 10 calling CQ. I was surprised by a call from XE2S who was S9 +10dB. Very surprised to miss AK, HI, ND and IA….where was Iowa? I expected a lot more DX activity, especially from EU.
5 band sweep with Dave K1VUT. 4 bands : OM2VL, DL3DXX, K1TR, K3MM, NE8P, NS0R, NX6T, VE2FK, W1FJ, W5TM, WV4P Many thanks to all the stations that called in. Great fun!
N1NN – 18TH New England QSO Party
N1YL – Between available breaks, my OM installed the Heil Boom, Microphone, and PTT hand switch that Jeff NT1K recommended (thanks Jeff!), an early b’day present that remained unopened for months account lack of time/priorities. Initially I had a huge anxiety attack because it seems we always try new things just before or during a contest and there is no time to test them. It turns out the new microphone was so awesome as I was hurting my neck with a desk microphone. We had a lot of laughs as I kept talking into my hand holding the PTT switch. My OM was jealous of the QSO rate that a YL voice generates both when running and in pileups helping me get 216 qso’s with 40 multipliers (9000 score) in 5 hours. He spent 7 hours on CW, mostly “running” and got 348 qso’s times 45 multipliers (30870 score) including Mark NX1K on 80/40/20 meters. Even with the YL advantage and better band conditions I am unlikely to beat my OM in a contest using SSB.
When I first got my license in 2014 the bands were open and I was able to get over 200 contacts in a 10-meter SSB contest. Over the last several years SSB has been harder due to band conditions. This year things have definitely improved. The bands were better and the noise decreased. Also all radios are not created equal and my performance improves with a radio I know. There is always more to learn in amateur radio.
NZ1U/m(W1UJ) – Thank you for all of the QSOs, you make it worth it! N1WK Station – F-150 Truck, 2 High-Sierra ‘Screwdriver’ antennas mounted to the back-rack with band-specific radials wrapped around inside the truck bed. K3 Rig, N1MM+, Mortty v5 keyer, 150AH Lifepo4 Battery, Lenovo T480 with aftermarket back-lit keyboard hook-and-loop’d to a lap desk with an old home-brew paddle secured to the desk. Driven/rode > 950 Miles (>1500KM) Consumed > 50 Gallons (~190L) of fuel 21 hours of driving (17 of those in the contest) 25 counties covered 1350 QSOs All CW All Running (Not a single S&P!)
Truck was in motion the entire time with very few stops. Thanks to N1WK for his effort driving the poor road and WX conditions, keeping us safe and on-track. MELIN was unpaved for many miles. Conditions for driving and radio conditions were similarly poor, somehow with these poor conditions we were able to put up our second best effort in the New England QP. This year had the least amount of planning and preparation- we used the 2024 route maps and went with it. Started setting up N1WK/m truck for battle only a couple of hours before the start. Busiest Calls with 10+ QSOs. Thank you all! K4QS was ready at nearly all county changes. TU!
K4QS 37 DL3DXX 34 OM2VL 30 K9CW 21 K9PW 20 N3XF 19 N4DW 19 WN4AFP 18 W5TM 17 W8MET 17 VE9VIC 15 W1AJT 15 WV4P 15 K1RO 14 N4CW 14 NS0R 14 VE3TG 14 AC6ZM 13 K3WJV 13 K9UIY 13 KA6BIM/713 N8II 13 W8PI 13 N4OX 12 K3MM 11 WB9HFK 11 DL5AXX 10 K2UA 10 K5CM 10 LY5W 10 NB1U 10 NE8P 10 W9QL 10 WA1FCN 10 Busiest Sections IL 113 DX 107 FL 97 PA 78 NY 75 TN 75 NC 59 VA 55 MA 52 MN 52 ON 52 OH 49 SC 42 OK 38 NH 32 MI 24 KS 22 TX 21 AL 20 GA 20 IN 20 NJ 20 The Barnstormers.
W1END – Rig was FTdx101 and Butternut vertical. Had a few mini runs and a very enjoyable time. Tnx to all.
W1MTT – Managed a small improvement in last year’s QSOs, but I felt that I had to work for it. Weather didn’t encourage antenna experiments. Thanks to all and see you next time.
W1QK – Thank you for the NEQP contacts. 73, Dan-W1QK CTWES
W1SEG – As always, I really enjoyed NEQP! Next year I hope to be active on more bands. Thanks to all who make NEQP happen.
W1VE – I had a very busy weekend, so very limited activity from VTBEN. Wow, were conditions terrible! Thanks to the NE Mobiles who had do deal with the terrible WX and propagation. Great activity! Thanks to the chasers. K2LE/1 needs a bunch of maintenance work. Essentially only had rotatable antennas on 15 and 10. We will get Andy’s place back in shape this summer!
W1WBB – Our CTRI CG’s **19th straight year** defending the New England club ‘Small Club Category’ high scoring group in NEQP…many of us were quite active from southeast CT & throughout RI. Modest effort for me as a nasty illness had me down for days ’til just before NEQP weekend. Equipment-wise all worked well. US States missed: KH6, ND, NM. VE mults missed (many!): VE4, VE6, VE8, VO1, VO2, VY0, VY1, VY2. Below avg SFI 152/159 and Sunspots 77/92 for current cycle with disturbed conditions all weekend (K-index of 4 with solar winds near 800km/sec at peak) so 15m and 10m were not productive and 20m often had weak signals. Thunderstorms nearby late Sat afternoon/eve affected rate/activity on lower bands. Thanks for all the contacts…always an enjoyable time!
W1WIU – Another fun year. 40 meters was the work horse band. Thanks to organizers for a great event.
WA3EEC – My goal in lurking (rather than making a serious effort) was to pick up a few states I need for WAS on single bands and modes. Looking at my confirmations for CW WAS, I stil need Idaho, Forphone WAS, I need Oregon,, Nevada, and Utah, on 40M I need Wyoming, and on 10M I need Maine and Delaware. I felt by looking at the spots (http://www.dxsummit.fi/), I might be able to pick up some. Boy was I wrong! While I heard OR, UT, and NV on 20M SSB, there was no way my 100W and a wire could break through the Midwestern pileups.10M seemed to be dead! I also forgot that the 7-land party was Saturday afternoon/evening only. In the end, I made 32 QSOs, mostly on 40M SSB. – The NEQP is one of my favorite contests. I enjoy representing Franklin County, one of the rarer counties for the county hunters. This year I swapped it up and did SSB mode vs my favorite CW although it’s only 1 point per qso vs 2 for CW. Score multipliers in this event are the other states and dx for the New England States and New England’s counties for everyone else. I selected a frequency to “run” (calling CQ NEQP) and some “search and pounce”. I was pleasantly surprised to talk briefly with Lad WA3EEC, people from CWops*, K1USN Radio Club*, and friends from LICW*. I was able to find 5 hours to operate during this 20-hour contest. Pending other Franklin County operators offering SSB I think I will remain using the mode (for the most part )😊