Donations are accepted. We appreciate the help!
While there are no major contests on this first weekend of February 2010, there is no reason to keep your radio off, as the Minnesota QSO Party leads a wide range of offerings that can occupy any CW, SBB or RTTY contest buff.
There are five QSO parties from the US and Canada, stretching from the Vermont QSO Party in New England, down the coast to the Delaware QSO Party, into the Midwest to Minnesota, southwest to the New Mexico QSO Party and then finally out to VE7 for the British Columbia QSO Party.
Also this weekend is the XE RTTY Contest, which serves as a warm up for anyone prepping for next week's big offering, the CQ WW WPX RTTY.
If none of those are of interest, there is the return of the North American Sprint on Saturday night local time, a four hour QSO dance that has its own special rules and rhythms (see more at right).
Despite the timing on the first weekend of February (when the weather is not exactly tropical in Minnesota), there will be no shortage of rover activity to make it easier for you to find the 87 counties in the North Star State.
The defending champ in the Mobile-Single class is the team of N0IM and AF9T (their car is pictured at right).
Jon Platt W0ZQ will be activating eight counties in 2010 after hitting eleven in 2009.
"I plan to operate 75M and 40M fone in the morning and evening hours and 40M and 20M fone during the afternoon hours along with CW," Platt says in a quick rundown on the Minnesota QSO Rovers Page.
"I may also give 15M a try mid day. I suspect that this change in tactics will result in a smaller score, but it may increase the fun factor," Platt added.
The MNQP has all kinds of information on the various rovers who have made plans to get out in the snow in this year's contest, so check it out at w0aa.org.
Organizers are hoping for another good turnout this year, as 230 logs were submitted in 2009, up from 201 the year before.
Most of the activity last year was on CW, with 21,000 contacts in the logs, plus almost 8,000 SBB QSO's.
If you are thinking of a "clean sweep" from Minnesota, there has only been one operator to do that in the last three runnings of the MNQP, as Mike Tessmer K9NW put all 87 in his log in 2009.
Those 87 mults helped Mike win the Single Op High Power category for a fourth straight year.
The Low Power winner was Rick Carrier WB8JUI, with QRP going to Julius Fazekas N2WN, who has won that category three years in a row.
Inside Minnesota, the Single Op defending champ is Dan Karg K0TI, who won as K0FVF the last two years. N0UR won in QRP, while N0XT took the SSB Only category.
Last year, they hit 20 counties on their way to a win in N0IM's vehicle above.
There is a lot of talk these days about single operator entries and whether spotting assistance should be used or not. If you don't want any of that, then maybe the North American Sprint is for you.
"I love the Sprint," says Jim George N3BB.
"No spotting or Skimmering will help anyone to any significant extent in the Sprint," he told radio-sport.net.
Because of the unique Sprint QSY rule, which does not allow competitiors to sit on one frequency and call CQ, packet spotting has little to no impact in this contest.
The 2009 NA Sprint CW contests both produced the same winners, as George Fremin K5TR won the high power section in February and September, while Scott Neader KA9FOX took the QRP title in each contest.
The same was true in low power, where Steve Franzen N9CK won each time in 2009 - with his victory in the September 2008 CW Sprint, Steve has a three contest winning streak, which certainly is a feat to be proud of.
Don't forget, the CW Sprint is the first weekend in February, with the SSB on the second weekend.
Find out more about the Sprints and check out the unique set of rules at the National Contest Journal.
