The July issue of QST arrived in the mail recently with an article on the January VHF Sweepstakes results. It always takes about 6 months to have the scores show up in QST, so some people make it a point to share their scores via email and figure out who won. I just submit my log and then forget about it until the scores get published, which means I have usually completely forgotten about the contest by then. It can make for a nice surprise when the article gets published.
This year I reverted back to my “hike up a local mountain and operate QRP” operating style. The past few years I have been more of a slacker, operating from the comfort of our cabin up in the mountains. The backpack portable approach is a lot of fun but does limit how many hours I operate and therefore keeps the score on the low side. I am not about to freeze my behind by spending the night on the mountain in January. It does make for a fun hike, often requiring snowshoes to make it up to the summit (but not this year). My soapbox comments, including a few photos, are on the ARRL web site.
So I opened QST and found that I absolutely dominated the Rocky Mountain Division with my 741 points :-). Here’s the list of Single-Operator Portable scores for the entire contest:
# | Call | Score | QSOs | Mult | Class | Section | |||
1 | N3YMS | 32,184 | 260 | 72 | Q | DE | |||
2 | N8XA | 6,864 | 123 | 48 | Q | OH | |||
3 | W9SZ | 2,268 | 38 | 28 | Q | IL | |||
4 | WB2AMU | 1,518 | 63 | 22 | Q | NLI | |||
5 | K9TMS | 1,420 | 46 | 20 | Q | EB | |||
6 | K0NR | 741 | 39 | 13 | Q | CO | |||
7 | W0UC | 380 | 19 | 10 | Q | MN | |||
8 | N0HJZ | 192 | 12 | 4 | Q | MN | |||
9 | KC8KSK | 138 | 17 | 6 | Q | NC | |||
10 | N0JK | 80 | 10 | 8 | Q | KS | |||
11 | K1EXE | 60 | 12 | 5 | Q | VT | |||
12 | VA3RKM | 56 | 9 | 4 | Q | ON | |||
13 | K9PY | 50 | 8 | 5 | Q | AZ | |||
14 | KD7WPJ | 48 | 6 | 6 | Q | UT | |||
15 | KB2AYU | 45 | 9 | 3 | Q | EPA | |||
16 | WA1LEI | 39 | 13 | 3 | Q | CT | |||
17 | W0DJM | 35 | 5 | 5 | Q | MN | |||
18 | K7RLL | 15 | 4 | 3 | Q | VA | |||
19 | W6MDH | 12 | 3 | 3 | Q | EB | |||
20 | N3RG | 8 | 1 | 1 | Q | SNJ | |||
21 | WA3WUL | 8 | 1 | 1 | Q | SNJ | |||
22 | W6CT | 4 | 2 | 2 | Q | SCV | |||
23 | K2ULR | 1 | 1 | 1 | Q | GA |
The competition in this category is a mix of activity ranging from very serious efforts (e.g., N3YMS with over 32,000 points) to people that just make a handful of contacts. It turns out I placed 6th overall. I didn’t enter the contest to win, but I have to admit it is nice to know there is a category where the Peanut-Whistle Stations don’t get swamped out by the Big Guns.
If you want to try something different, give VHF QRP a try in one of the contests.
73, Bob K0NR
Wow thats great. I hope you got in on the recent June VHF QSO party. 6M was wide open all Saturday. I worked all over the South East area with a FT-817 and a 6m vertical.
-Sean KB0VER
Sean,
Yes, the June contest was awesome….good 6M propagation most of the day for both Saturday and Sunday.
73, Bob K0NR