Top Ten Reasons to Operate the NEQP

10. For a lot of U.S. hams, New England is halfway to Europe, and in the right direction, so you can try out your new European stacks and Beverages.

9. If you’re a W1 operating from your home, it’s just like a DX contest where you only have to push F1 all weekend and run guys. The multipliers will come to you.

8. Tell a mobile in Vermont or Rhode Island how loud he is and butter him up so you can get the mult in SS.

7. The W1 big guns going mobile will have a chance to see how it feels to be weak for a change.  And if you’re in Europe, you can hear what weak W1s sound like.

6. You can try to figure out why there are Windham counties in Connecticut and Vermont, but not New Hampshire, where Windham is just a town. You can ask every station you work in Rockingham County, NH, if the hams there are really rocking. (note – the aforementioned Windham, NH is in Rockingham County).

5. If your call is K3WW, it’s yet another contest for you to enter! (K3WW operated 52 different contests in 2001)

4. Since the exchange is the first 3 letters of the county and the two-letter state abbreviation, this opens up all kinds of opportunities.  See if you can find a YL named Norma in Norfolk County, MA. Work K1TTT in Berkshire County, MA, and see if the ARRL will accept it for XZ credit. See if K1KI/m has to stop the car for a rest stop in Piscataquis County, ME. See if you can drive the ops at N1TN crazy by asking them “Where’s Waldo?”. Ask W1UF if he knows a limerick that starts with “There was a young miss from Nantucket…”. Ask a mobile to drive from Washington County VT to Washington County ME to Washington County RI so you can get your WAWC award. Be thankful there’s no Eaton County in Maine.

3. It’s going to rain next weekend, so you won’t be able to do antenna work anyway.

2. Ask the ops at W1YK and K1EA how “Wissta County, Mass” gets abbreviated “WOR MA”, and see how long it takes before they start saying they are in “Wor-sess-ter” county.

and the Number One Reason to operate the NEQP…..

1. You missed the 2005 Florida QSO party, and you’ve been looking forward to operating a QSO Party for the last year!

— courtesy of Doug Grant, K1DG