Openings on 10 Meters Mean More Multipliers and Strategy Choices in North American QSO Party CW

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted January 8, 2012

The story is a familiar one now for the January running of the North American QSO Party, as with plenty of active sunspots fueling the bands, contesters are expecting more action in this month's contests which start with the CW leg on the weekend of January 14-15.

But with more open bands also come more decisions on how best to maximize your score.

Rewind to one year ago when sunspot numbers were just starting to creep up - now they are regularly over 100, which presents contesters with some interesting choices in this contest, where multipliers are counted on every band from 10-160 meters.

When Chris Hurlbut KL9A ran the NK7U station to a victory in January of 2011, he did it with 101 contacts and 28 multipliers on 10 meters, helping to him to a win over two California contesters, Trey Garlough N5KO and Dan Craig N6MJ.

"Great to see 10m open, however brief!" KL9A wrote on 3830 after last year's contest - this January it could be much different when it comes to what may be the most popular contest band around the world.

But remember - if 10 meters is open to a good part of the country during NAQP CW, it only makes the juggling act that is the North American QSO Party that much more of a strategy contest.

When do you take your time off?

How do you juggle making sure you get mults on all 6 bands?

How soon should you look to move people to other bands?

In recent years, NAQP competitors have been praying for 15 meters to open - hardly even worried about 10 meters.

In January of 2010, KL9A managed all of 1 contact on 10 meters - the best in the top ten that year was W9RE with 6 QSO's and 4 multipliers.

KL9A has been the master of this January NAQP CW in recent times, winning in 2009, 2010 and 2011 - so he will be out for his fourth straight single operator title.

But don't think that you don't have to be on the West Coast to win in this contest, as the Multi-Two team of Stan Stockton K5GO showed again last year, outdueling W6YX and K0RF to take the top spot from Arkansas.

"As usual, this contest is one of the highlights of the year for us," said Kevin Stockton N5DX after last year's contest.

It seems a good bet that K5GO's numbers on 10 meters will be a bit different in 2012, as in January of 2011 they managed only 9 contacts and 5 multipliers.

At the same time, can they match their 160 meter numbers of a year ago? K5GO notched 254 QSOs and 49 multipliers on Top Band, backing that up with 513/57 on 80 meters and 483/60 on 40 meters.

The CW leg of the North American QSO Party is a 12 hour contest that starts at 1800z on January 14 and runs to 0600z on January 15. Multi-ops can run the entire contest; single ops can only operate 10 hours.

Maybe the most important rule though is on your power - this is a Low Power and QRP contest only - no High Power entries.