I was surprised to hear and be able to work so many 7 land stations throughout the day on Saturday. I didn't hear any DE stations for the first several hours of the contest. Once they started working 40 meters, though, they were easy. Unfortunately I only found a few of them there. I didn't have much time available on Sunday but ended working quite a few New Englanders near the end.

Tough conditions for Delaware this year. In the logs posted so far only five members scored that multiplier (half as many as last year), and none had more than three contacts. I grabbed W3NCK on 40m with 8 minutes left in a 2-day event!
Other events were busy and I could have racked up a lot more NE stations while hunting the elusive DE.

Both NC and SC are a challenge due to their proximity to Ga. It's a pretty much 2 band party for me and having to wait until early evening before any participants start doing 80 m. So, it's 40m or bust during most of the party. I was able to work about 4 NC stations on 20 m, who were very weak, of course. I was able to beat my 2023 scores by just a little. But neighboring QSO Parties is something that everyone around the Country experiences during the entire season. I hope to participate in 2 weeks.

For the past two years we have spent the SC & NC QP's in Florida. So my attention was spread between our visit and working the parties. Not so much this year, as we are home. I was able, sans some interruptions by grandkids and the mid temperatures outside this weekend, to devote a greater amount of time to these two (2) QP's. There were not as many SC operators as I had hoped, but the activities by the NC hams made up for that. Between both parties I had just over 100 QSO's. So now I look forward to the weekend of March 8th with the ID, OK and WI OP's. Hope to see you on the air.

It's not often that I can pick my preferred times of the day to operate on an SQP weekend, but it worked out well for me in the SC and NC parties. In both of them I gave an hour of operation for the daytime bands--20m and above--starting about an hour after the opening bell in order not to compete with the high power pile-ups. And then again an hour in the evening on 40m and 80m hoping to catch some of the same stations I got in the daytime. Two hours of operation in both parties garnered me 86 Qs, well above my average for a two SQP weekend.

Had the same problem as Alan with this weekend being mostly restricted to 40 & 80m. Previous years I've made up for it by running over the NC line to pull some pileups, but wasn't able to make it happen and barely got to play radio at all on Sunday for a record low score. Hope to make that Kentucky run in June.

I had a blast working these two parties. I haven't done much with these types of events in the past, so it was a new experience for me! Knowing that my QRP signal wasn't super-strong took a lot of pressure off, and I enjoyed slipping into the shack a couple of times each day to see who I could work. I'm really looking forward to the next ones! Thanks and 73

I worked up a template for the WIQP for SD Logger - the logging program I use the most - with the intention of finding a WI station on 10m to move my 5-band WAS QRP CW along. That didn't happen but I did make WIQP QSOs on other bands. I also discovered that OKQP was going on so I worked some of them. I didn't hear any IDQP stations. My QP challenge participation this year is going to be much more casual than last year...sitting back and enjoying them when I can without the self-inflicted pressure of trying to make at least 2 QSOs in each one. Keeping it fun... 72

Had a lot of fun with the 3 parties, but we all probably had some challenging conditions with one or more solar storms! I know on two different occasions; the A index was 35 and the K index was 5. Plus, the solar flux index had dropped to around 150 during most of the weekend. I hope this is not a sign that we are headed to solar minimum faster than expected??? You could hear the roaring on 40 and 80m at night, especially 80m when the A index is high! It's actually noticeable on all bands.
This weekend could really be a challenge here in the mtns. of North Ga. because a huge storm is predicted which could be severe all over the south. So, I may be disconnected due to lighting and/or the low bands could be very noisy with static crashes, which was actually a problem last Sat. night.
All the best to everyone and have fun with QRP!
Tnx so much, Don and Brent, for all you and others do for the Club!!!

By being a bit more strategic with the times I operate in each SQP and by adding maybe an extra half hour to what I've done before, I'm hoping to increase my QSO total this year. It's early days, but so far it seems to be working out. Somehow I overlooked the fact that the OKQP was on for Sunday too, but I had little chance to operate more on Sunday anyway. Looking forward to higher scores in the VAQP this weekend.

Wisconson stations were a lot easier to find on Sunday, after the event started, than on Saturday when I started looking. Need to read that calendar more carefully. I should have hit it just a little harder to make it to Bronze this week.

I was lucky enough to beat my last year's scores for all three (3) QP's, even ID, which seems to get little activity. My technique for pile ups is to tune 5HZ down, let all op's call, and at the first lull I pounce. My results are better than 50% which I'll take every time running QRO. The Virgina QP is very popular on the east coast here (NJ). Everyone should have good results. Good Luck to all!

I had a pretty good weekend. I was able to work all ops I heard except for five (5) that did not hear me. April 5th will be a busy weekend with (3) QP'S.
Good Luck to all.

I work every other weekend so it's hard to work all the qso parties even to get the multiplier. So I try hard on the ones I can make. Had fun chasing N4CW from county to county to get some extra multipliers on Sunday afternoon when things got slow but missed a few not getting through the pileups. Heard a few stations on the higher bands but my QRP signal was not going to do it. Really had fun in this one chasing rovers and mobile stations on the APRS map.

I had a fun time during the VAQP and made my best score ever. The bands were good, especially 40m from central Ohio. There was a lot of activity, and the multipliers were plentiful thanks to a few mobile stations and some very good ops.

Due to the wx here in Ga., and the Southeast, my operating was somewhat limited. I am the ARES EC and Skywarn Coor. and we had a Skywarn Net for almost 8 hours. I also do other work for the NWS which kept me busy until the front had passed most of Ga.
So, because of this, I actually made more contacts than I expected. Static crashes were really strong on 40 and 80m.

Being 1000km distant from VA I was able to get half my QSOs on 20m daytime, and the others distributed between 40m and 80m after dark. Got WU4G on three bands, and now realize that he was QRP. Way to go, QRP!

I operated at the 5W level, with no assistance, CW only, except for a single mobile contact I made as K2PI/M on my way to get some plumbing parts. The ice storms of a few months ago did a lot of damage to the trees around my home, and knocked down 4 of my antennas. It's taken me a while to get things right, and still have work yet to do. The weekend of this contest, I finally got my 160M inverted-L back up properly, but I shouldn't have bothered, because there was very little activity. Primary activity was on 40 and 80, and a smattering of the higher bands, where I tried to give away VA to DX and West Coast. Of the 5 hours I operated, I probably spent most of it running rather than hunt and pounce, and I think this was a good strategy. There were many multipliers, including DX, that I would not have found or would have had to fight a pileup for that I got in the log. This netted me, with just limited operating time, a reasonably good score but of course not a winning score. I didn't really have storm issues, unless you count the plumbing work I had to accomplish instead of operating, where it was more cussing up a storm than dealing with one! I had a fun time, and I am certain few, if any, knew I was QRP, so condx were pretty good. Thanks to everyone who worked me, and next year, a better QRP effort.

I was able to play for a little while Saturday evening and near the start on Sunday morning. Plenty of stations to work and the pile-ups weren't too bad.

Should have been a good event for me, with parts of VA being far enough away for 20m to work. I spent most of Saturday unplugged for thunderstorms and halfway considering a road trip to work in-state. Sunday flew by between chores and a good baseball game and I ended up scrambling for the multiplier.

Those ND OP's were indeed elusive last weekend. Fortunately working N7IV twice on different bands saved that multiple for me. Alan in Georgia sure smoked us. Good job by him. New Mexico OP's were more frequent than last year. My up 5-Hz wait, and pounce helped my 5-Watts to punch through the GA pile ups for the most part. Regards, 73, Ernie

I didn't hear much activity from NM or ND (1 Q), but GA made up for it. I had lots of fun chasing the mobiles. You are right, the pile-ups were fierce! Breaking through the pile-ups on AD4EB with 5W was an accomplishment. 73- Rick

I haven't been taking the time to run up many points so far, but grabbing all the multipliers keeps my options open in case I'm able to get serious about it for the Tennessee & Kentucky events. But ND had me worried. I kept watching RBN and tuning the bands, but no stations.
So then I got crafty. I scraped the '23 and '24 3830Scores results for all the in-state ops who'd made at least 2 CW contacts in either of those events and then dropped that list into HamAlert (being careful to disable that alert when I wasn't near the shack to avoid abusing the system). That really ought to have worked, but I was getting no notifications until N7IV, who wasn't on the list, showed up on 20m RBN. I worked him, then added him to HamAlert. An hour later HamAlert showed me he was on 40m, so got him again. That was the only ND station I found, but I think I'll try the trick again for other tough events. FWIW, he was on 14.027 and 7.029, so I'd have never heard him tuning around the event's recommended frequencies.

The weekend was very challenging here in Ga. On Sat., the K index stayed around 5 and the SFI was around 165 . The A index was also as high as 20-30 . Because of this, 10m was pretty useless and 15m was not much better. Actually, everything suffers when the K index is that high. What propagation that occurred on 15m was very long due to a long skip.
99% of my efforts were centered on the Ga Qso Party. I was hoping to make at least 60 contacts but that was not possible with the poor conditions on the high bands. I ended up with 464 q's running 5w, but I made 365 contacts last year with 1w, when the conditions were better.
I messed around and only made 1 q in the North Dakota Party so I lost a mult. It may not be a big deal because I am not sure how much I will participate during the rest of the year. I had surgery a week ago and was dealing with the effects of that during the weekend which was not very pleasant. I have a couple of more surgeries to go so I will just play it by ear!
Tnx so very much to Brent, Don, and all the volunteers that make this great Club possible! 72, Alan

Band conditions didn't seem bad here in central Ohio. Thank you to N7IV for both of my ND QSOs. His consistency in frequency choice made him easier to find. I wish NDQP allowed self spotting. That might help us with ND scores. Even though I didn't hear many NM stations, I was able to work those I heard. The GA rovers sure helped with multipliers. Both persistence and good timing paid off with getting through the pile ups.

I had high hopes of scoring big [for me, 50 Q's?] in the GaQP, but starting out I heard few signals, and those I called didn't hear me. What happened to my antenna!? Thanks, Alan, for explaining the band conditions. Things picked up for me later in the afternoon and evening. Like others I give credit to Joe N7IV in ND for hanging around and picking our weak signals out of the ether.

I participated in the Quebec QSO Party on April 20th using the special event callsign VB2QC. I operated portable from Lac Leamy in Gatineau, Quebec in the Outaouais region. I set up my Venus SW-6B at a picnic table along with my AlexLoop and BaMaTech TP-III paddles about 20 minutes after the start of the party. It was 3C (37F) and windy. The band conditions weren't much better. I spotted myself and called CQ for half an hour before my first contact. After an hour and a half, I was feeling a bit chilled. I ended up with eleven contacts in the log with most on 20m, a couple on 40m, and one on 15m. It was a blast, and I'm looking forward to next year.

Nebraska turned out to be more active this year than previously, so not much trouble grabbing that. Getting that 2nd Quebec was tough, but of course a 3rd popped up right after I worked it. Not sure why, but QC stations were either pegging the needle (the three I worked), or barely audible, plagued with QSB, and not hearing me at all. 20m seemed long all weekend. Again, grabbed the multis, but didn't get enough shack time to run up a score with the numerous MI and ON stations. Best part of the weekend was working Don VE3DQN at his county-line barn portable setup.

I didn't score big or spend much time on any of this weekend's contests, but I still managed to get them all. The highlight for me was working fellow NAQCC member VE3SIF. Somehow we heard each other, although it wasn't easy at my end. On a side note, is anybody attending the Dayton/Xenia Hamvention? I plan to be there on Friday, May 16th.

I tried a new trick for the Ontario party--operating on a county line--and it paid off big time. A friend has an unused dairy barn on a county line 20 minutes from my house. My antenna was a 105ft dipole up 35ft at the apex, fed with ladderline. I wondered how it would do, but in the first half hour on 20m I had QSOs with CA, OR, and WA. Giving out an exchange of two counties in each QSO means double the QSO count. I reached 248 Qs operating only on Saturday. 40m in the evening was the money band. Highlight was working Brent WT4U and Ron VE3SIF.
In previous years I've had a hard time gaining even the multiplier in the Quebec party. Being so close to Quebec the daytime signals fly right over me. I discovered though that by 4pm I was able to grab the 40m signals. Gotta remember this for next year.

I only had a little bit of time to tune around the bands on Saturday. Conditions weren't the best but it was fun to work a few partiers!

I only worked a few hours of this QP but was very active. My thanks to all the Fl OP's. My participation in May's QP's will drop off as we will be spending a month in KH6 land. I know tough assignment, but someone has to go help the Hawaiian economy. I'll bring my high band QMX and 20M QCX, and plan to activate the parks on The Big Island, Kauai, and Maui. Of course, I'll try to see if I can qualify for the QP's but not holding out much hope. Aloha.

Florida is always difficult being next door to Ga., especially without 80m. But I made more contacts than I expected.
It seems like this coming weekend is the most difficult weekend for the entire season if my ole feeble memory is correct. I am having another surgery this Thursday so I don't know if I will be able to participate? If I do, it may be limited? I'll just have to wait and see.
All the best to everyone this weekend and thanks so very much for all you and Brent do for the Club!

Nothing to report on the FLQP; I had to be away from my station for that weekend. Unfortunately, because of travel and a family funeral, I'm also going to have to skip the big first weekend of May and its 4 SQPs. My clean run in the first 19 SQPs this season is coming to an abrupt halt. I'll pick up again soon :-)

20 wasn't too long this weekend, so every time I turned on the rig I could work stations there, or on 40m. Didn't hit it too hard, but still thought I was doing pretty well until I saw everyone else's scores! Great event.