Advantage West Coast As North American QSO Party Returns; Don't Forget To Check 10 meters

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted January 3, 2010

The lackluster propagation of the last few years has certainly left its mark on the North American QSO Party, as top contesters may once again strain to check off needed multipliers on 10 meters.

In January 2009, the top ten finishers made only 23 contacts on 10 meters for a grand total of 16 mults. January of 2007 was marginally better at 30/19.

Two years ago though in January 2008, 10 meters did appear, especially out to the West, as winner Dan Craig N6MJ totaled 85 contacts and 24 mults.

Craig needed those extra mults a January ago in 2009, as he finished second to Chris Hurlbut KL9A, who won from NK7U in Oregon, while Craig was again operating from W6YI near San Diego.

Hurlbut was only able to make one 10 meter QSO with the NK7U 7x7 stack, that with local N7WR, who hopped around the bands with KL9A for some needed multipliers.

"First time getting OR on all bands," Hurlbut said afterward.

Craig though was the winner in the combined January 2009 CW & SSB NAQP competition, as his first place SSB and second place CW finish gave him the edge over W9RE and K6LL.

Some NAQP Contest Reminders

If you can't make this weekend's CW contest, don't forget that the NAQP is a multi-part adventure, with an SSB weekend coming up and a RTTY weekend at th end of February.

As for the NAQP rules for the CW and SSB legs, there are several key points to remember.

Maybe the most important item is that there is no High Power category - 100 watts is the maximum power, as there are only Low Power and QRP categories for Single Operators, while Multi-Two is the only multi-operator offering..

Unlike the NA Sprints, multipliers count on all bands in the NAQP contests, so if you snag someone from the Carribean or Alaska on one band, maybe try to move them to another band that might be open.

Another important reminder is the time restrictions - while Multi-ops can work the entire 12 hour contest period, single operators can only operate a maximum of 10 hours.

Your off times must be a minimum of 30 minutes, which you may as well make a minimum of "31" minutes so you don't foul up your log.