Episode 2.1: Recapping the Florida QSO Party
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On Saturday and Sunday, the bands were ignited by the Florida State QSO Party, or FQP. As the weekend (April 29-30) rolled along I took notes for this post-contest mini-episode 2.1.
Congratulations to the Florida Contest Group for 20 years of this great contest. It’s a fun one with lots of activity from Florida counties.
In this part of the solar cycle, during daylight the only band producing contacts was 20M, so that’s where I devoted my time and attention.
During and after a contest, I will often jot down notes about observations and things I could learn from for next time out. That’s sort of the point of this podcast about contesting. I’m making notes for myself, and I hope they’re useful to others.
I ran 100 watts, leaving the kilowatt amplifier turned off. In fact, out of the six years I’ve entered the Florida QSO Party since 2004, in only one year did I run high power – 2008, which also coincided with my second-highest ever score in this one, about 5,300 points.
It’s interesting to note that in 2011, with 100 watts I beat that score with nearly 7,600 points in the log. The solar cycle had improved that much by 2011, and over the six years since then the peak arrived in 2013 and we’ve slid down the other shoulder into the long, dry valley of solar minimum right now.
This time out, I finished with 38,500 points, 153 contacts and 63 counties in Florida. Time on the air was around 9.5 hours, spread out over many sessions
That might not sound like much, but those are all high-water marks from this station. In fact, it is a 500 percent improvement over my previous best score.
Saturday morning from British Columbia was very tough going into Florida. Stations were generally weak, and we had one-way propagation. They were pointing at the northeast and working the US northeast and Europe so stations in the W7 region got short shrift.
Makes sense to do that – I would, too, if I were in Florida. You have to go where the points are – finding the most fertile ground for your CQs.
Saturday eased a bit on 20M later in the day but it was never easy. 40M was no good from here on Saturday evening or Sunday morning.
But Sunday morning on 20M was fun for a couple of hours after local sunrise – from 6 to 8 a.m. Pacific — with signals from Florida strong for the home stations and workable rover stations moving as fast as I could keep up.
I have to thank N4EEB, who provided me with 20 counties. Other super-active rovers in my log included:
- AD4ES – 13 counties
- K4OJ – 12 counties
- N4KG – 9 counties
- K4ZGB – 9 counties
- W4AN – 8 counties
- NO5W – 8 counties
- N4FP – 6 counties
- K8MR – 6 counties
- KN4Y – 3 counties
- N4DAB – 2 counties
The really active rovers were spread out in a span just above 14.045 – smack-dab in the middle of the “rover window” from 14.040 to 050. I made a note of where we had worked before on 20M, using the band map built into N1MM Logger, and kept coming back to see if any of them had moved into a new county. It was a pretty good feed of new ones through the day.
If I couldn’t hear a rover on his parking frequency, I figured he was up in the phone band or on the move, and made a mental note to come back shortly to see what part of Florida he was going to activate next.
A little patience and persistence really pays off when hunting for rovers in new counties.
There were amazing stretches of rover activity when it was all I could do to keep up with them, they were all hitting new counties so quickly.
Special thanks to NO5W for the excellent rover station activity maps. They really worked well for tracking where a station was and where to expect them next. These and other great resources are linked from the Florida QP website’s Counties info page.
I spent many sessions waiting to get through to some stations – going 15 minutes or longer between contacts as I sifted through the signals already worked. That’s called “working out the band,” but as I have mentioned, if you stay with it or come back a few minutes later there will be new stations to work.
In a lot of multi-mode contests, where you can work CW, Phone or both modes, points are weighted in favor of CW contacts. In this one, a CW contact is worth two points, while a phone contact is worth just one point. And isn’t that just as it should be (he says with a smile). So, there’s a real incentive to head lower in the band occasionally to work the CW stations.
Final analysis
This was a great running of the Florida QP. I saw a 500 percent increase over any previous best score I’ve had over the years, and with low power, on bands that were horrible between me and Florida.
I think my major score improvement this year speaks highly of the in-state participation rate and, in particular, the rover activity that activated so many counties with workable signals.
Thanks for the contacts, Florida.
Keep an ear out for four more QSO parties next weekend. They’re the subject of the next episode of Zone Zero. Subscribe if you like these brief contest podcasts, and please consider going into iTunes and leaving a review to help get the word out.
73 from British Columbia.
Thanks for checking in. Now, let’s go get ‘em.