Writeup | New England Scores | Scores from Outside New England | Breakdowns of Top Stations | Soapbox Comments
W/VE Stations Outside New England
AC4CS – With Mothers day falling on the contest period didn’t get to participate to much.
CG7NI/VE7NI – Special prefix used; sorry I didn’t have more time to operate!
K1GU/4 – Very nice to hook up with lots of old friends. Good Warm-up for Dayton.
K2EKM – QRP Single Operator category. Only able to get in for the last few minutes, but glad I did.
K2RD – Lousy conditions from CA, but nice to hear some old friends and neighbors from N.E.
K3MD – Limited effort. No SSB heard on 40m.
K3TW – Thanks for a great QSO Party. I had a good time
K4AMC – Thanks for the contest and great looking certificate from last year. Maybe next year will have more time.
K4AQ – Working TDY for two weeks in Wise County, Virginia. Operated QRP at the Holiday Inn in Norton, VA, parked parallel 10 feet on the northside of a two-story hotel brick building, surrounded by hills and mountains. Vehicle pointed ENE. I was not planning to operate on Saturday; just wanted to check out the noise level on the various bands. But, at 2350z, I made my first 20cw QSO with W1DMD before closing stn at 0231z with 24 Q’s (20cw, 20ssb, 40cw) on a “scratch” paper log. FT-897D transceiver operated at 5 watts into a Hustler mobile antenna system (RM-20 & RM-40 resonators) mounted on a Diamond K-400 near the top of the left rear door of a 15-psgr club wagon. Rig power provided by a stand-alone AGM battery. Heil Pro-Set Plus headset. Tigertronics SignaLink SL-1 sound card radio interface. microHAM USB rig interface. Dell Latitude laptop powered by a 300-watt inverter. WriteLog 10.53e.
K4BEV – Sure hope I got the Syrup again this year… QRN was vy bad on 40! TNX for a GREAT Contest!! 73
K4DXU – My 1st NEQSP, I didn’t have much time to op but still fun!
K4FXU/4 – Enjoyed very much!
K4GM – Computer crashed after 41 Q’s and could not get it back up for four days! Had fun while it lasted.
K4IRS – Encountered lots of nice, patient people. A great contest.
K6EU – Thanks for running the contest. I enjoyed it and it was good cw practice for me. Hope to see you in the CA QSP.
K6OWL – A few contacts on Mother’s Day Weekend. CU in California QSO Party in October.
K6RB – Horrible conditions out here. Horizontal rain, and rain static on a vertical! Worked all I could hear, but didn’t hear much. No antenna for 80 meters, and no signals on 10 meters. Oh, well, there’s always next year.
K7QQ – Really great condx ????? some 15 Saturday nil Sunday
K8SCR – Just received my license a few weeks ago.
K0GSV – Great contest–looking forward to 2006
K0HW – I had a tough time on this one although I increased my score over the last 2 years. The conditions were really bad on Sunday and my rotator is bad, pointed NW so I used my 160 meter dipole on 20 and there was so much QRN it was really bad on 40 both days.
K0IO – Fun contest! Look forward to next year.
K0JPL – Enjoyed the contest. Still have the syrup from last years test.
K0UK – This was a test session for the SO2R set up. Still got a ways to go on this project. Band conditiions were terrible..Small opening that I could take advantage of on 15mtrs…20mtrs was the Bread and Butter band. Thanks to all..
KB8UUZ – Terrible band conditions! Was hoping to do much better, maybe next year …
KE4CQE – Had a blast, only got 28 QSO’s – will try again next year!
KG9LZ – Pretty hairy atmospheric conditions Sunday. I had a great time. Thanks to all.
KI7GV – Not a bad score for running barefoot to a dipole at 10ft. I had hoped to have some new antennas up but fell and broke my wrist two days before the contest. I’ll be back next year with new ant and better score. Had a great time and a lot of fun anyway. tnx & take care.
N2CU – As I said last year, no chance of getting a big score when everyone is on 20m where I have no propagation. Saturday night’s fluttery signals on 80m made this sound like the All-Asian contest. I can’t remember conditions ever being as bad as this in any other sunspot cycle. Still had fun, but I wish more stations would make use of the low bands, especially mobiles during daylight hours.
N4CW – Band conditions not as good as last year. Mothers Day isn’t a good day for a ham radio event…that being said, good work from the mobiles that worked from several under-represented counties. Kudos to K1KI and N1RL — both having outstanding mobile signals throughout the event.
N4PN – The NEQP just keeps getting better….Great job of activating all of the counties again. Would have been happy to repeat last years score of 48,173 points but passed that early on Sunday afternoon. This year had 24 more CW q’S and 160 more SSB Q’s… Thanks to Jim/W1NY and his driver Steve, N1SR, who gave me the most Q’s with 27. Followed by old faithful, Tom, K1KI with 18. Thanks to the other mobiles who gave me the following: Brian, NJ1F (16); WA1Z (15); Doug, K1DG (11); K1BX (10); W1XX (8); W3SM (8), Joel, N1JEO (7); Ron, KB1LXV (7); K1RJM (6); W1GS (5); W1WEF (4); N1RL & AA4AK (3). Several with two Q’s including WA1IIE. (K1RJM was on a family trip from Maine to New London County, CT and kept coming back on frequency to give me a new contact.) Thanks to Marty, K1PIG who took time on Sunday afternoon to go mobiling to Franklin County, ME for one of my last three. Once we made the contact, worked another FRAME within three minutes! The next to last was Franklin County, MA and thanks to NJ1F and W1NY got that one within a short period of time. Last one was Knox County, ME and thanks to Ron, KB1LXV who did a lot of traveling to give me the last one at 1730Z…6 1/2 hours before the end of the contest….results in not much sweating out the SWEEP this year. Think that whatever happened on Saturday night (Aurora) probably made for tough conditions around the US but didn’t seems to have much negative effect from here in Georgia. Must have been really “tuff” west of the Mississippi. After having won this contest before, I always have extra incentive as the plaques are as good as it gets…they make a great addition to any ham shack. This entire affair is first-class even though it’s only a few years in the works – from the promoting, the write-up/results and awards. Thanks to all of those that made it happen…again…and thanks also to the fixed stations. ‘Til the next one….73
N5II – Great QSO party.
N7VPN – Used SD contest software for the 2nd time. Makes contesting fun. The propagation was not as good as last year. I wish I could hear some NE stations on 40 & 80 meters. Time runs out too soon in the evening. Hi Hi See you next year..
N9MSB – Had fun working the contest
N0IBT – Thanks for sponsoring this enjoyable contest.
N0WY – Conditions dropped off fast and were pretty much gone Sunday.
NB7F – Tnx fer neat contest – 20 really picked up last hour but nobody on!
NO2D – Multiple QSO Parties and the County Hunter Contest added confusion and excitement to the contest. Band open between New England and Colorado on Saturday, but not as good on Sunday.
NT4XT – Managed to go to a Pow Wow (a YL wish it was cool), The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (YL wish), make dinner/serve it/clean kitchen, and the NEQP as well, on this Mother’s Day weekend. Got more time in than I had imagined I would! Yea! Pegasus 4-5W out to G5RV (or an 80 ocf Inv Vee if by error). No Interface, completely manual keying/logging. Worked hard had fun. I love this party. Thanks all for excavating my signal from the ether.
VA1MM – Radio Ft1000mp M5 Field, antenna G5RV with 40 Meter reflector behind it at 1/4 wave. This is a fun contest.
VA3DF – Thanks for great time.
VA3IX – Good fun! Bad condx! Bad score!
VA7MJR – My first time entering this QSO party. Wish I could have spent more time
VE3XD – Could only put in a short effort on 40 cw.
W0PQ – Great fun! Elecraft K1, 5w, G5RV dipole, twin lead, MFJ-949e antenna tuner, home brew CW paddle.
W8KNO – Worked three counties I did not have confirmed. Before the band dropped out it was strange to hear NE on twenty.
W4CWA – I’ve been a ham for over 25 years and this is the first time I have participated in the NEQP. I did enjoy the contest which netted a much needed RI – my last state missing for WAS with my new call. Lots of QRN and with what sounded like aurora conditions. For me 40 meters went long early in the evening – over shooting New England from NC. I made 26 CW QSOs and with 16 mults. Nice job everyone and I hope to see you next year when I can put more effort into this contest.
W4TDB – Great time but not the best of conditions. Antennas on Tennessee for the September Tennessee QSO Party!
W4ZPR/m – While visiting friends in Atlanta my schedule only allowed for a few minutes of mobile operation.
W6GPM – 20m only useful band to CA.
W7DPW – Thanks for such a fine contest, The band conditions were fair Saturday but Sunday was a disaster. Very few signals heard on any band.
WA1FCN – A real enjoyable contest.Thanks to all the mobilesyour travels made the contest fun.
WA1JSD – Nice to hear the activity die-down Sunday afternoon honoring “Mom” or Grandma!! Enjoyed working into old “one-land”!! Tnx fiesta.
WA1PMA – Lots of fun but band condx on Sunday where poor out west. It was hard listening to the Midwest and South work stations in NE I couldn’t hear at all.
WA8SDA – Really enjoy this contest and had a good time.
WB3DOM – Very nice contest but condx didn’t do NW Pa any favors. In any case had a ball with the time that I had available.
WB4ZPF – I didn’t hear as many mobiles runnhing counties this year, so my score is down from last year. Maybe Sunday being Mothers day had something to do with that. But it still is a great party and I enjoyed partcipating again.
WC7S – Used 5 watts with an inverted vee at 40 feet, an open line fed 260 foot dipole, and a 3 element co-phase dipole on 20 at 20 feet. Nothing high enough…. but then there aren’t any trees here either. Had a lot of fun, and am looking forward to next year too. Hope you all had fun, bcnu in the next party.
WD4LYV – Had fun with contest, bad was bad to Georgia
WN1GIV/N4BP – I was first licensed as a Novice in 1955 as WN1GIV. My “Elmer” at the time was a cropduster from Pinehurst, MA. My father knew Les Holmes, W1VFY. through their mutual love of flying and got me together with him. For my fiftieth year as a ham, late last year I applied for and received my old call as the “Plantation Contest Club” and have been using it exclusively in 2005. It was a blast using WN1GIV/4 in the NEQP! The highlight was when W1UQ asked me if my father was John Patten. It turned out that Mort had crashed his small plane at the Wareham, MA airport and then sold it to my father for salvage. My memory of the event when I was probably about ten years old is non-existant, but I probably helped my father rebuild that plane in the cellar of our house on Main Street in Wareham! It was also a blast working W1NY as he mobiled through many counties. W1NY is the club call of the Hamden County ARA of which I was a member for about ten years ending in 1967 when I moved to Florida. Unfortunately, propagation Sunday was very poor from FL to NE, and I had to spend most of my time on SSB to work what home stations could make the path. For the most part, I was unable to find any of the mobiles on Sunday although W1NY searched me out several times and was patient while I struggled to copy his county. My goal became to beat my personal best in 2003, but I fell just short of it…
DX Stations
DL5AWI – First day excellent condx- second was a disaster! Sunday was very poor condx and a hard job to work the USA from here. Hope better next year!
HA2MN/5 – The radio blackout made a bitter surprise for Sunday. SFI:100 frm 110 A:10 frm 3 K:6 frm 1 (128 nT) 1500 08 May 2005. After a fair star it was aggravating to hear nothing but noise. Maybe next year. Thanks to organizers and QSO partners. It is a great contest with many participants from New England. Rig TS-530SP 100w into a vertical rod.
LY2FN – First time worked NEW ENGLAND QP 73!
PA3ARM – Tke agn fer organsing es running the 2005 New England QSO party. Enjoyed it a lot agn . Though I finished New England fer me. Big signals with flutter at the start; had to get up early Sunday morning so finished at 23.00Z. Back from other activities at 16.00Z on Sunday but no sigs. Realized the strong sigs on Saturday with flutter were not without reason. No contacts on Sunday ……. Cuagn in 2006 Tks all who were on.
New England Stations
AF1T – Not much DX! Conditions were not good most of Sunday, 15 and 10 meters were dead, but participating was a good activity during this rainy weekend!
AK1W/K5ZD –Whew, conditions were stinko on Sunday. From here, it seemed that 20m was the only band and it was a pipeline to W4 and W9. Not much else. Mother’s Day also seemed to reduce some of the activity levels on the bands. Happy to work all states except HI. The ARI contest provided some easy DXCC multipliers. Worked 53 DX QSOs in 24 countries. Amazed when ZL/NB1B called in the first time on 20 long path. Worked him on 15 and 40m also. No big rates. Could get spurts of action on 20 SSB or following being spotted on the cluster. Best motivation to keep operating was the horrible weather outside! Rainy and windy on Saturday. Cool and windy on Sunday. Really hurts to turn on the golf tournament Sunday and see all the green grass, leaves, and people in short sleeve shirts!
K1BI – T’aint much, but I’m lucky I got the time I did for the contest.
K1BV – A very enjoyable contest, in spite of poor conditions. Nice to be sought for contacts vs being the “seeker”.
K1DG/m – Managed to hit 12 counties from the mobile this year: Total QSOs around 375, multiplier unknown.Great fun getting new pileups in each new county, and having ZL/NB1B call me in 4 of them. Good ears, Dennis! Family illness prevented me from reaching two other counties on the planned Sunday route, but with conditions as bad as they were, I probably wouldn’t have made many QSOs in them anyway.I did discover that in light traffic at moderate speeds and low QSO rates, it IS possible to operate, log and drive single-op. But I don’t recommend it! Rig: IC706MK2G, manual-change mobile whips for 20 and 40. 2 QSOs on SSB, the rest on CW.
K1FK – R1 propagation blackout conditions for more than 70% of contest period severely limited operating time and QSO count.
K1HTN – First NEQP for me. Fun time. N4PN a big signal. FT1000mp Mk-V Field, 100w, 40/20m dipoles, 17m dela loop on15m.
K1JB – “What a difference a day makes.” applied as usual. Conditions Saturday afternoon and evening were great. Pointed the beam SW, worked lots of US and even some EU off the back. Sunday was more like work. No EU, billions of 4’s and 9’s and not much else. The hoped-for opening to EU on 40 Sunday evening was a mirage. I was bouncing all over the place on SSB and CW. SSB is clearly the place to pick up the non-contesters who are glad to help out, but you have to be patient. The bad wx and remnants of a cold prevented any chance of flying around Maine this year, so it was all from home for a change. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a rainy weekend.
K1PAR – I was only able to work about 5 hours of the party but still had a good time. The 20 meter band really opened during the last hour, would like to see it run until 9 p.m. eastern time.
K1RV – Had limited time, but enjoyed myself. My entry is QRP (5 wts) and all CW even though there is no QRP CW category!
K1RX – Poor conditions most times, amazing to switch from West to NE antennas on 40 M to hear USA go from S9 to S3 and EU stations calling with S9 sigs. First semi-serious effort despite software problems. Originally setup station for M/S but no one showed up so entered the SOHP category. With such poor conditions, hard to hear many of the NE counties on the air. The advantage goes to our friends in W4 land. Only when my old friend, Tom, K3TW asked me to QSY to 40 M SSB in the last 10 minutes, did things really pick up! Was doing 4 to 5 per minute in that last kick to the finish! And old friend N4PN called in then too. Nice surprise was to work my mentor, W1RU in Maine in the last hour on 40 CW. Thanks!
K1SEZ – Gentlemen, here is my very first log ever submitted. I hope it’s right!
K1ZK -Had a great time from Chittenden County, VT. Wish the bands had been better on Sunday.
K1ZZ – Noisy bands, Mother’s Day weekend…but still a lot of fun.
K2LE/1 – Handed out 771 CW QSOs for Bennington County – but could not get it for myself. Good fun despite the usual confusion and conflict with the ARI contest and some W9 QSO parties all around the same frequencies. Tnx for all NE rovers…
KB1LAX – Worked a few hours the first day. Second day the bands went dead!
KB1LXV/m – The NEQP was indeed fun, and although my contacts weren’t numbering in the hundreds, I had a blast and made some new friends. N1PN was especially happy when I drove to the last two counties he needed to finish the list. I was especially popular while parked on the Lincoln/Knox county line with my “contact so nice you can count me twice” hails.
KC1V – This was my first time for the NEQP, really enjoyed it.
KM1P – XYL says “There really shouldn’t have a contest on Mother’s Day” I explained that some mothers LIKED to contest on Mother’s Day. She was unconvinced.
N1DC – I had another great time this year. I expected to far exceed last year’s totals and was way ahead in the first 2 hours. I had about 100 Q’s in the first 90 minutes on 20M. Family activities Saturday night forced me to QRT for several hours. This would turn out to be a giant mistake later. On Saturday the biggest thrill was having ZL/NB1B answer my CQ on 20M. Thanks Dennis! I worked many EU stations off the back of my beam before switching to 40 and later 80M. I ended Saturday with about 175 Q’s in the log. Conditions were good here in eastern MA. On Sunday I planned to “run” on 15M and bump up the multiplier and QSO counts. I checked for WWV on 20 MHz. Where was WWV ? There was nothing but a hiss across the entire 15M band. In fact there was nothing audible above 19 MHz on my receiver. I checked for WWV at 15MHz…it was only S2. Very weak and unusual which was a sure sign of big propagation trouble. A quick check on 40 and 80 proved they were not in good shape either with a lot of QRN.
I decided to go back on 20M and start calling CQ. All day it was an up hill fight to get anything going. I bounced around between 15, 20, 40 and 80. I really tried hard to get some local contacts on 15M ground wave but never heard anyone and got no response to 15-20 minutes of CQ’s.
Conditions in general were lousy all day for anything beyond 1,000 miles. Some stations from the southwest were barely audible. The day before the same areas were S9 +20dB. Late in the afternoon things started to very slowly improve. I couldn’t get much going on 20M looking mostly for multipliers and hoping for more DX and some missing states including AK and HI. I switched to 40M for the last 90 minutes and had a good run up to the end. The noise level dropped dramatically and the band filled up with signals just in time for the end of the contest !!
It was a lot of fun and always a challenge regardless. I worked many of the same stations on 20, 40 and 80M. Thanks to all that answered my CQ, especially the many mobiles and DX stations. I’ll be back again next year for sure !
N1DD – Only able to operate a few minutes Sat evening and 2 short periods on Sun. Guess I missed the best times to operate as activity was low and conditions were not good the short time I was on. Experimented with QRP. Was able to adjust power down on radio but setting was “touchy”. With decent antennas and low activity, was able to make almost all Q’s running.
N1DM – To those I worked who I sounded confused to, you are correct, was getting used to a new logging program, Band conditions led toa lot of NE QSO’s on 20 M
N1HOQ – Heavy windstorm, rotors stalling, masts slipping, but had fun.
N1NK – New 40m delta loop works just fine. Heavy wind over the weekend sure kept the Steppir bouncing around. On the other hand it reduced the desire to work outside. Worked very few EU stations during daytime Sunday. Worked 5 stations on 15m sunday afternoon and never heard a peep the whole time. Did dramatically improve score over last year, by 10x. Can’t complain about that.
N1SV – With Sunday being Mothers Day my operating time was limited to only six hours on Saturday. Whose idea was it anyway to plan a contest on mothers day! Even with the limited operating time it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed working so many mobiles on 20 and 40m. I enjoyed getting a call from ZL/NB1B on 20m who had a very nice signal even though I was point away from him. I found 40m quite active Satuday afternoon and evening and even managed to work a couple of DX stations split.
N1ZN – Great fun as always.
N8WXQ – See you next year. Lots of fun.
W1ACT/P/KE1LI –Wow what a weekend!!!!!!! As usual I participated in the NEQP with the Fall River AMC from the Gay Head Circle at the far west end of Martha’s Vineyard. Set-up went fine with decent signals on the 40M inverted V covering the eastern half of the US easily. My 32’ foot fiberglass mast didn’t make the first night, FridaySaturday. It came down in four pieces with all the guys still attached.At this point the wind was peaking around 40 MPH and raining hard. A semi successful attempt was made to erect a shortened version with the help of Matt KB1FUP. We managed 12’ off the ground with 7 guy ropes to hold it in place. At the time I thought it was over kill but didn’t realize things would get worse. We clocked the winds on Saturday afternoon at 66 MPH and ¼ mile away they registered 74 MPH. These are not normal NEQP conditions. The only casualties of the weekend were my fiberglass mast, the band conditions on Sunday and our waistlines (we eat very well). In retrospect, it was fairly exhilarating. If you worked us, thanks. To all the rest, we tried in the worst WX conditions I’ve ever tried to contest in. There will be next year with stronger mast, hopefully better WX, and more MEAT!!!! What a wacky hobby we have.
W1AIR – This was my first NEQP, it was a lot of fun. Especially enjoyed demonstrating ham radio for Margie the mother-in-law of KC4JMH Mike in TN on Mother’s Day. Now she knows what he does in that shack all night hi hi!
W1EBI – Had four brief periods of operation each little more than an hour. Prop took a nosedive sometime Saturday. Almost no DX called in on Sunday, but it’s always fun being the prey.
W1ECH – Happy to provide Rutland County to a few people! Sorry not to have more time available that weekend.
W1END – Had a fun time but conditions sure dropped on Sunday. Thanks to all.
W1FJ – poor conditions but lots of fun
W1HIS – My first NEQP. Good fun. Thanks to all who participated.
W1JQ -Condx seemed great on Saturday, poor on Sunday. According to NOAA, we had some sort of an RF blackout Saturday; didn’t notice it. And the numbers for Sunday looked good, but the stations weren’t there.In the end: I beat last year’s score, probably by about 10%. (Haven’tlooked up last year’s claimed score.) Let’s see if I’m in 7th place 3 years in a row…
W1NY/m(KK1W+N1SR) – Mad Maxx (N1SR) did the driving and I (KK1W) did the operating. The bands were poor so Steve did all the work! 1202 miles, 140 contacts, 39 counties and 6 states. Ending up in Lisbon Falls, ME at 8:00 Sunday evening was not really in the plan – it just worked out that way. Much thanks to N4PN, WN1GIV/4 & K1GU/4 for being there most of Sunday afternoon. With conditions so poor it would have been impossible without your help guys – thanks! Great fun, thanks to Tom & all for organinzing the contest.
W1OH – Unfortunately, a couple of unexpected family things came up and clobbered my available operating time. And what happened to propagation on Sunday? Bit of a flare Sunday early AM, apparently. Ouch.
W1RM – I was only able to spend 7 hours this time. Conditions were just wonderful! I was pleasantly surprised to get a call from ZL/NB1B on 15 Saturday afternoon. We tried 10 but no luck — then a ZL3 called me so there was an opening of sorts. Later got him on 20 LP. Hats off to the mobiles who put up with the lousy conditions and weather — double handicap for sure.
W1VIV – Great contest as always! The sunspot cycle is not our friend — we get about four good years out of eleven.
W1XX/m(+K1XA) – operated mobile from Kent and Newport counties (RI) on Sunday only. Some foul weather limited our activity.
WA1VKO – Band conditions and Mothers Day conspired to lower my totals this year to less than half of last year. Oh well… as the Red Sox fans used to say, “Wait ’till next year.”
WA1ZYX – I had fun as usual. Just wish there were more from NH on and wish I had more time to operate! Also sure would be nice for the Counties to count as mults for us NE stations!!
WA1Z/m – I think I’ve found my favorite category for this contest! Stayed too long in the first three counties, but I was having so much fun Ididn’t want to waste time driving. Got to Belknap NH too late for 40. Ran out of time on Saturday night and only had 20 minutes to workwith in Merrimac NH. Lessons learned along the way…. Thanks for all the contacts, including N4PN, KA0GGI, K4LTA, K0JPL, WN1GIV, and many more who kept things interesting from county to county.
WB1EDI/N1OZF – I would have done more cw but Mary kept wanting more phone.Ii even got her to call cq for a while and she got a few qs that way. We ran SOLP with 100 watts into a tribander @35 Ft and inv Vs @ 40 ft. We did not get the biggest scores but we had fun when we could play.
WC1M – Had a lot of fun in this one, despite punk conditions on Sunday. Didn’t plan to do anything more than dabble for a couple of hours, as usual, but decided at the last minute to spend as much time as I could during the busy weekend. That proved to be difficult, what with family time on Saturday and Mother’s Day on Sunday. I was able to work less than half the permitted hours. Still, got in enough operating to satisfy my itch. This year’s 8-hour effort certainly blew away my previous efforts of 49 minutes in 2003 and 1:49 in 2004! (Sadly, those were both enough to win Grafton County.)
One thing that makes NEQP fun is being one of the “rare” ones. As one of the few who use HP, I was evidently loud enough for everyone to hear and, while my station is modest from a DX-contest point of view, it’s pretty good for domestic events. All that made for plenty of activity. The contest started out with such a bang, with the 10-minute rate meter hitting 174 in the first hour, I thought I was in a major contest! Had a 98-hour at the start and a 94-hour during the 2300z slot. Unusual to get rates so high in a domestic QSO party.
My only complaint is that there’s a rules anomaly when rovers are participating in multiple county-based contests. I worked about 30 dupes, mostly rovers moving from one county to another in states outside of New England. It took me a while to figure out why so many dupes were calling — I had been ignoring the county sent by non-New England stations. As popularity of this contest grows, this could be a real problem for New England stations. As the FAQ indicates, New England stations get QSO credit for working multiple New England counties in the same state, so perhaps we need to extend that rule to be valid for multiple county contacts in any state. Anyhow, this contest is lots of fun and this year’s experience convinced me that I should try to make more time for it in the future. See you next year!