NAQCC Special Event Stations N#A

Not long after Tom and I secured all ten of our N#A calls and announced it in the newsletter, you started to sign up to be one of our operators. That's right, it's not too early to sign up, and those who sign up first get first choice of operating times as the choice goes by sign-up date/time if there is any conflict.

Those who've been operators in the past have nothing but good things to say about being an operator. They know the routine, but for those who don't, heres a brief summary.

All you need to do is operate as you normally do, but use the special event call assigned to your call area instead of your own call. Of course you'll probably want to put in more hours than you normally operate. Actually that's pretty much all you really need to know, but here are a few more things. We need one operator from each of the ten call areas to activate the call in the sprint that week. We again will have our real time scheduler so you can tell club members (and non-members) when and where to find you on the bands. That was a big hit and a success when we debuted it last year.

Oh, I guess I need to tell you the dates of the celebration. It runs from 0000Z October 6 through 2400Z October 12, a full seven days as usual. The sprint that week will be on Tuesday evening local time.

Now here are those who've signed up already. Remember if something comes up, you can always cancel up to the last minute. Also remember we can't have too many ops for a call area. The more ops, the more air time for our SE calls. Those in red below are signed up to do the sprint for that call area.

N1A - W1OH
N2A - N2DVD
N3A - K3WWP WY3H KC2EGL WA3HIC
N4A - KI4EBD KU4GW AI4SV
N5A -  
N6A - K6MGO  
N7A - 
N8A - N8XMS N8IUP
N9A - K9EYT 
N0A - KC0PMH W0EJ

If you've read this and want to join in the operation, simply email

with the subject "NA Operation" and state your intention in the body of the email including your call and NAQCC number. Be sure we have a good email address for you to send out our informational emails to all ops as the time draws near.

2012 OPERATION WRAP-UP

Here are some statistics for our operation this year.

Records mentioned are for 2009-2012 when our operation lasted one week. Before that we operated the full month of October.

Total QSOs made by our N#A operators - 948 which is a new record breaking 883 from last year.

There were only 32 two-way N#A QSOs, way below the record of 58 in 2009.

Our ops made QSOs on all bands except 160M. Totals by band (80 - 10): 48, 374, 49, 308, 6, 4, 1, 2.

There were QSOs with 46 states, all but AK, HI, and the Dakotas.

We covered Canada pretty well with QSOs reported with AB, BC, MB, NB, ON, QC, SK.

Not a lot of DX this year with just these countries represented in our N#A logs - CM DL F G I OK XE.

By far the state most often worked was MO which appeared in 27 N#A ops' logs. TX a distant second with 20, and AL and PA tied for third with 18.

All in all a very successful anniversary week thanks to YOU, our wonderful operators and to YOU, our wonderful members who worked the N#A stations. Since it is physically impossible for us to pat you on the back, please everyone pat yourself on the back for a WELL DONE! salute.

And now, let's get to the QSL and Certificate info. I'm sure you want to know how you can still get yours, so here goes:

CERTIFICATE AND QSL INFORMATION

Here's a wrap-up of the QSLs and certificates by our Awards Manager John KK1X:

"It seems that the Anniversary Celebration resulted in another banner year for NAQCC. I know you folks kept me busy down here in the Awards Department. I collected and processed 34 different operator logs for N0A..N9A (I'm pretty sure there were 34 different formats, too, HI!) For the most part the logs were all text, with a few spreadsheets and a PDF.

Along with these logs, I received requests for 31 QSL cards, and requests for 23 certificates. Two of the certificates were issued to members who contacted all ten special event stations: Dave W0CH and Paul KB9ILT.

At this point (right before Thanksgiving as of writing this) the number of requests I get has dropped off quite a bit. I did send out one certificate yesterday, but I think I'm close to done.

If you haven't gotten a chance to submit requests, please let me know. I'm still happy to generate certificates and QSL cards. For certificates, just let me know which stations you worked (e.g. N0A, N4A and N7A), and when. I'll email back an image for you to print. For QSL cards, please send me a card and a SASE for up to four cards. If it's more than four cards, please include a dollar, and more than seven, please include two dollars.

Contact me at : John Griswold / 34 Cambridge St / Ayer MA 01432 / Awards@kk1x.net"

Speaking of Dave W0CH, he had this to say about his certificate which I (K3WWP) printed on special certificate paper obtained by Tom WY3H and mailed to him:

"Hi John: I wish to thank you for the very nice certificate for working all 10 N#A districts. It arrived Saturday in fine shape. That is one of the nicest certificates I have received and it will be displayed prominently on my shack wall. 73, Dave W0CH Seneca, MO"

OPERATOR INFORMATION

Below is a list of our 43 operators. A couple couldn't participate for various reasons, but those who did came through like the champions they are. We certainly appreciate their efforts in making this a very successful anniversary week. Those calls in red operated the the sprint.

N1A - W1OH W1SVU KB1UOH
N2A - NW2K KQ2RP WB2LQF
N3A - K3WWP WY3H KC2EGL WA3HIC AF3Z KG3W
N4A - AI4SV K3RLL KI4EBD WB4MNK NY4G K2UFT AB9CA
N5A - WD5EAE KK5NA W5IQS W5WIL 
N6A - K6MGO W6NIA WK6L 
N7A - WC7S WY7N NU7T WA7ITZ WU7F
N8A - N8XMS N8IUP AC8AP
N9A - KR9Z NN9S K9EYT KA9VHG W9UX KG9HM
N0A - KD0V AC0BQ KC0PMH

We had a 'real-time' scheduler this year for the first time, and that made posting schedules a snap right up to the last minute before an operation and helped avoid conflicts in scheduling.

Here are some comments gleaned from the reports that we received from our operators.

K3WWP - Many of you are thanking me for the events of anniversary week. While I appreciate the sentiments, it should be the other way around. I thank all of you for making anniversary week a great success again this year. Personally I had a great time running N3A in the few hours I had to do it. Especially enjoyable were the Parkpedition with Mike KC2EGL and then closing out the week putting N3A in the PA QSO Party.

N8XMS - I had a great time. Your schedule input page really made it easy to coordinate with the other operators on previously unscheduled time slots.

WU7F - It was fun. I thought there would be more stations - I was worried that I would not be able to keep up. Most of time was spent just calling CQ. Had power supply fail, but was able to secure a battery and continue. Thanks for allowing me to participate.

W5WIL - I had a great time; a little nervous but went ok; folks were very nice. I'll plan on working for the whole week next year. I currently only have a 33' OCF up 25' but I plan to put up a 240' dipole this next week and then a pair of 580' reversible 'beverage' antennas which should help receiving QRP. I appreciate you taking the time to add me late and clean up my scheduling errors.

KG9HM - Thank you for the opportunity to be a special event station. I had fun!

K6MGO - It saddens me that there is such little CW activity now days. I know that I am not the loudest signal on the band with my indoor antenna, but I check my propagation with Reverse Beacons Net, and I know for a fact that I am being heard from KH6LC in Keaau, HI to K3MM in Danascus, MD and yet I called CQ for hours on end without a contact. It's really sad.

AC0BQ - It was good QRP fun, even with some tough conditions during the week! Thanks for the opportunity to represent the club and QRP.

KA9VHG - I'm sorry to say that I was unable to get my antenna coupler repaired in time for the 8th anniversary celebration. I've acquired the necessary parts and have started the repairs but don't anticipate being back in operation for another week or so. I'll look forward to next year's event, and hopefully Murphy will smile a bit more favorably on me.

WA3HIC - For those stations that I had a Qso with, I enjoyed talking to them. For those I missed... See you next year!!

KC0PMH - Thanks for the experience John, I'll be there next year,

W1OH - Didn't have enough time available in the evenings. Tried some hours during daytime, including a couple of fairly unproductive hours using the tri-band yagi at the Falmouth ARA club station (K1AIR) in hopes it would give me a bigger signal and more action - nope! (Solar conditions early in the week didn't help the higher bands either). Evenings were the most productive by far - did have a couple of short runs with the N1A special call. Next year will try to plan more evening time, and also see if I can pull anyone from the local club into the operation :-) Put me on next year's list - it's fun for sure. And I've got some ideas for different tactics next time as well.

KI4EBD - Thanks John for all you hard work running this event. While there was not a lot of traffic it was great fun.

KD0V - To bad we couldn't get more people to be active here in zero land. I tried, but everyone said they were to busy. I had a great time. It was the best N#A event that I have worked so far. (Makes you wonder what people are so busy doing they can't even devote a couple of hours out of a whole week to our operation - K3WWP)

Now for those interested, here are wrapups from previous years.

2011 OPERATION

Our 7th anniversary celebration this year (2011) is now history with some record setting participation numbers. First of all thanks to our N#A special event stations operators. Everyone who signed up to operate has our deepest thanks and gratitude even though circumstances beyond their control prevented some from being able to make any QSOs. They are very special folks who have a deep love for and interest in the NAQCC and want to help us out in any way they can. Here is a list of those who volunteered to be ops of our N#A stations. Those who operated N#A in the sprint are in RED.

N1A - N1DN KB1PBA
N2A - KQ2RP NW2K
N3A - K3WWP WY3H KC2EGL N3ES AF3Z WA3HIC
N4A - K2UFT KI4EBD N4EWT KB4QQJ KD4UKW K4NVJ
N5A - W5YDM K5JYD
N6A - KA6TVX WA6ES
N7A - WD8KRV
N8A - N8XMS N8IUP KD8HES AC8AP
N9A - AB9JT KA9NOO W9UX
N0A - KC0PMH N0TU K0HJC KD0V WD0K AA0AA WB0QQT

Let's look at some stats from the operation.

We didn't receive reports from a few of our operators, but this is what we have from all those who did report as requested.

Stat:           2011    2010    2009
Total QSOs:      849     840     830
States:          All      48      45
Provinces:         6       3       6
DX Entities:      45      13      15
2XN#A QSOs:       24      49      58
Sprint QSOs:     302     254     128
QSOs by band (not tabulated in 2009)
160                0       3       
80                21     127
40               301     573
30               105      42
20               268      74
17                 5       9
15                33       7
12                11       4
10                40       1
State logged by most different ops:
2011 - GA by 13 of 35 ops
2010 - IN, PA by 15 of 30 ops
2009 - PA by 20 of 27 ops

In our first few celebrations through 2008 we operated the whole month of October. That tended to spread the operation out too thin and we find that condensing it to just one week makes for a more successful and orderly celebration. The stats bear that out as in 2007 we had a total of 1,125 QSOs and in 2008 we had 1,600 QSOs. With just one week in 2009-2011 we had NOT 1/4 as many QSOs as would be expected from 1 week vs. 4 weeks, but we had over 1/2 the number of QSOs.

Also through 2008 we used just N3A/# as our special event call. Then in 2009 we simplified and un-confused things by using 10 separate calls - N1A,N2A....N9A,N0A.

2010 Operation

Our 6th Anniversary operation is over now.

We had a rough week what with the PJpedition, lousy conditions (widespread constant QRN), and some RTTY contest the last couple days of the operation. See the soapbox comments below to see how universal the adversity was. Also a couple of ops had to drop out or alter their sked at the last minute due to other matters taking precedence over ham radio. However we still came up with a few more QSO's than in 2009 because of the persistence against adversity shown by our fine operators.

We had a record breaking performance by our N#A ops in our sprint with some 240 QSO's made by our ten ops who manned our 10 N#A stations for the sprint.

Here's a list of our wonderful ops. Thanks go out to each and every one of them for their efforts in helping us with our celebration. Sprint ops in red.

N1A - W1OH, N1LU, KQ1P
N2A - KA2KGP, N2COD
N3A - K3WWP, WY3H, KC2EGL, WA3HIC, AF3Z
N4A - K3RLL, AJ4SB, AA4W, K2UFT, K0NWT, AD4S, KD4UKW
N5A - W5YDM, K5JYD, KC5FM
N6A - K6CSL, WA6L
N7A - WY7N, WC7S, WA7HDI
N8A - WB8LZG, AC8AP, W8RIT
N9A - W9DLN, W9BOK, N9QU
N0A - KD0V

This was not a contest among our ops to see who could make the most QSO's. It was a team effort by all the fine members listed above. As such we are only listing our team totals, not individual ones. With everyone now checking in, here are those team totals with a few comparison totals from 2009 in square brackets:

Total QSO's: 840 - [830]
2way N#A QSO's: 49 - [58]
Sprint QSO's: 254 - [128]
QSO's by band
160 - 3
80 - 127
40 - 573
30 - 42
20 - 74
17 - 9
15 - 7
12 - 4
10 - 1
States worked: 48 (all but AK and HI) - [45 (all but DE HI MS SD WY)]
VE Provinces: 3 ON QC SK - [6 AB BC NB NS ON QC]
DX entities (excluding W/VE) 12 OK EA EA6 HB9 ON HA F OD PJ7 UR FG VK
States worked by most different N#A ops:
IN PA (15 ops)
FL GA OH TX WI (14)
MI NY (12)

Here are some soapbox comments by our ops:

K3WWP - I didn't get to put in many hours as a N#A op during the week, but it was still very enjoyable. Most of the QSO's I made were in the QRP ARCI Contest the closing weekend where I gave out N3A 88 times. I could have operated our NAQCC sprint as N3A, but I wanted to let one of our other N3A ops (KC2EGL) have the fun instead. I hope our 7th anniversary observance next year turns up less adversity and we can crack the 1,000 QSO barrier then. Thanks to all involved with the operation.

N2COD - One word .... BRUTAL!

WA7HDI - Noise was very bad in the southwest for the whole week.

K3RLL - All contacts made at home with K2 @ 5w to attic dipole or in the park with KX-1 @ 3 w to EFHW. (Thank Elecraft for good memory keyer!) Morning 20 meter shift was pretty sparse, but evening 40 meter shift was a total waste of time with DXpedition, RTTY and other digital effluent. Who picked these times and frequencies,anyhow? (Oh, what? It was me? Okay, then. It was great, of course. :-)

KQ1P - Although conditions were variable, the QSO's made were mostly very solid.

WA3HIC - Conditions down here were poor (at best) and there were several other contests running (not to mention the PJ's). I am now using a Q tip to clean the static out of my ears!!!

N9QU - Thanks for the opportunity to play. I wish I had more contacts to report but couldn't wish for any more fun. Have a great day and Thank You for all your efforts in behalf of CW & QRP. 73 Leo

N1LU - Thanks for all your work John, 73 don (And thanks to you and all members involved. - K3WWP)

2009 Operation

Well, sadly the Fifth anniversary celebration is now history. However we plan to do it all over again in 2010 for our Sixth anniversary.

Using separate calls (N1A, N2A....N9A, N0A) for each of the 10 USA call areas proved a big hit among both our operators and those who worked our special event stations. There were no reports of folks being confused by the calls this year as we had when we used N3A/1, N3A/2....N3A/9, N3A/0 in past years.

I also think the shorter time frame this year concentrated the activity more rather than having it spread out over a whole month with the attendant many many empty hours. Although there were still many empty hours this year, most of the 'prime time' slots were pretty well filled.

About the only down thing that prevented us from making a better showing than we could have were the absolute horrible propagation conditions that showed up a few hours after the great start we had at 0000Z on the 12th and persisted through the entire week. It's a tribute to the skills and persistence of our fine N#A ops that we did as well as we did. Just imagine if this had been a sunspot peak year with a quiet ionosphere!

With all but one op reporting in, here are the stats for this year's operation. We made a total of 830 QSO's from 45 states, 6 Canadian provinces, and 16 DX countries. Most activity was limited to 80, 40, and 20 meters as far as I can see so far. If you project 830 QSO's in 7 days to a full 31 day month by multiplying by 4.4 that's 3,652, more than double our anniversary totals of previous years when we did use the full month.

We awarded a handsome prize in conjunction with our anniversary celebration. Check the Prizes page in this section of the web site for details on that. Basically it's a 'CW Lamp' as pictured on the prizes page, and it goes to the one who reports the most different band QSO's with our N#A stations. That person was Don N1LU. Congrats Don.

Here is a list of the ops who helped out with our anniversary operation (Sprint OPS in blue):

N1A - KQ1P, W1OH, K1YAN
N2A - KA2KGP, N2COD
N3A - K3WWP, WY3H, AF3Z, W0EJ, WA3HIC, KC2EGL
N4A - WA3ZBJ, KF4WK
N5A - KD5KJ, W5YDM
N6A - W6AZ
N7A - WY7N, KH6OZ
N8A - N8ZYA, KB8FE
N9A - N9AKF, NV9X, WA9KPZ
N0A - KD0V, WG0AT, AB0TX

NOTE - Rich KG1W signed up but a job situation forced him to withdraw. We thank him anyway and still consider him a part of the team, although inactive for the operation. Also KJ4EXC signed up, but we never heard from him after that.

2008 Operation

Our Fourth Anniversary celebration with our special event call N3A which was used during the entire month of October (0000Z on the 1st through 2400Z on the 31st) is now history.

We broke our record of 1,125 QSO's last year by a sizeable margin. With most ops reporting as requested, we are just under 1,600 QSO's this year.

The following is a list of our wonderful operators. We thank each and every one of them for their efforts during the month. Unfortunately some had other situations come up that allowed them to only make a few QSO's or not make any QSO's at all. Those ops get an equal share of our thanks as well for volunteering to help out.

N3A/1 - W1OH (MA), K1YAN (MA)
N3A/2 - N2JNZ (NY), W9VES (NJ), KD2MX (NJ)
N3A/3 - WY3H (PA), K3WWP (PA), AF3Z (PA), AE3J (DE), KC2EGL (PA)
N3A/4 - K4UK (VA), KB4QQJ (NC), AA4W (FL), W4ONC (VA)
N3A/5 - W5TM (OK), AE5BH (TX), WA5TCZ (LA)
N3A/6 - K6BBQ (CA)
N3A/7 - KH6OZ (MT), WY7N (UT)
N3A/8 - WB8LZG (MI), K8KFJ (WV), KB2FEL (WV)
N3A/9 - K9JWI (IN), AI4AW (WI)
N3A/0 - AB0TX (KS)

Where more than one op signed up from a call area, it was up to the ops to decide how they divided their operating time. We could only have one N3A station at a time active from a specific call area. This system worked out exceedingly well, and probably allowed our ops to become better acquainted with their fellow area ops as an additional benefit.

We had all call areas signed up to operate in both our October NAQCC sprint as well as for the FISTS sprint, although as with the overall operation, a couple were unable to honor their committments due to circumstances beyond their control. We also encouraged our ops to participate in the PA QSO Party. Here is a list of those who signed up for each event:

FISTS Sprint (11th/1700-2100Z):
N3A/1 - W1OH
N3A/2 - N2JNZ
N3A/3 - K3WWP
N3A/4 - W4ONC
N3A/5 - WA5TCZ
N3A/6 - K6BBQ
N3A/7 - WY7N
N3A/8 - K8KFJ
N3A/9 - K9JWI
N3A/0 - AB0TX

PA QSO Party (11th/2100-12th/0500 & 12th/1300-2200Z):
N3A/1 - W1OH
N3A/2 - N2JNZ
N3A/3 - K3WWP
N3A/4 - KB4QQJ
N3A/7 - WY7N
N3A/9 - K9JWI

NAQCC Sprint (15th/0030-0230Z):
N3A/1 - K1YAN
N3A/2 - KD2MX
N3A/3 - AF3Z
N3A/4 - KB4QQJ
N3A/5 - WA5TCZ
N3A/6 - K6BBQ
N3A/7 - WY7N
N3A/8 - WB8LZG
N3A/9 - K9JWI
N3A/0 - AB0TX

Scheduled operations including the contests/sprints listed above were found on a new feature this year - a daily calendar.

The NAQCC used its two club numbers - a NAQCC number (1100) and a FISTS number (11900) as follows for our N3A operation:

11900 ONLY in the FISTS Sprint.

1100 ONLY in our NAQCC Sprint and in non-contest, non-sprint QSO's the rest of the month.

2007 Operation

N3A was operated during the entire month of October 2007 in honor of the 3rd anniversary of the founding of the NAQCC around October 15, 2004. The operation was a complete success with over 1,128 QSO's made by the 16 hams who operated N3A. Here is a summary of our operation preceded by certificate and QSL info.

SUMMARY:

We can't thank the following 16 ops enough for contributing their skills to the operation of N3A. Some were not able to operate as many hours as others due to various reasons, but we feel that ALL contributed equally to the effort. We had 7 call areas involved for the whole month, and 3 other areas came on board for the October sprint and continued for the rest of the month. Each operator used a portable designation after the call to avoid confusion. Hopefully all 16 ops will be back again next year for the 4th anniversary running of our special event call along with some additional ops as well.

N3A/1 - N1EAV, N1LU*
N3A/2 - KD2MX, AB2WH
N3A/3 - WY3H, K3WWP, K3OQ
N3A/4 - AA4W, N3ZL
N3A/5 - AE5BH
N3A/6 - K6BBQ
N3A/7 - NU7T, WY7N
N3A/8 - WB8LZG*
N3A/9 - W9ILF*
N3A/0 - NO2D*
* - These ops joined the effort at the time of the sprint.

We also thank VA3RJ who was one of the first to volunteer to operate the station as N3A/VE3, but after checking we found that special event calls, unlike regular calls, cannot be operated outside the USA.

We never received a detailed breakdown from a couple of our ops, but here are the partial overall totals we did receive:

QSO's - 1,128
QSO's in contests - 710
Other QSO's - 322
2-way N3A/# QSO's - 38
DX (non-W/VE) QSO's - 23
QSO's by Band:
160: 14
80: 283
40: 423
30: 31
20: 225
17: 3
15: 13
12: 0
10: 1
States worked - (45) ALL but AK, HI, MT, ND, RI
DX entities worked including W/VE - (16) CO DL EI FM GM HA HP J3 KP4 OH0 OM UR VE V3 W ZF

OP COMMENTS

K3WWP - One of the thrills I got from the operation was seeing how hesitatingly some ops volunteered, saying they were afraid they weren't good enough to operate the station. Then those same ops turned in some very good results. I'm delighted these ops learned that they were indeed good enough to be ops of a special event station, and gained confidence in themselves as a result.

NU7T - Being a part of N3A was fun. I tried to email each noncontest contact with club information. Sharing days with Bruce, WY7N, was interesting. Two of my days were wiped out with thunderstorms.

AA4W - I had a ball operating N3A/4. I had many FB QSO's, meet a lot of nice folks and made a couple new friends along the way. I worked a number of members but I had expected to work more. I'm already looking forward to next year.