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Results
Results
On May 4, 2019, Jay, WA0WWW, and I put 1 Montana, 1 Washington, and 21 Idaho counties on the air. We started on the MT Beaverhead - ID Clark county line on a dirt road at the top of Monida Pass. It was a great start to the day with 72 Qs in a mix of 20 and 40 m. From there we meandered westerly across the Snake River Plain in Idaho before turning north at Boise, then again westerly to nearly the OR border before heading north to my home in Moscow, ID. We covered about 850 miles in the 18 hours.
Our final QSO count was 603 with 51 mults for a score of 92,259 which far exceeded any of our previous 7QP efforts. We had 285 Qs on 40, 317 on 20, and a single one on 15 m when I was able to run our available bands with KK7A as we were passing through his ID Ada county. With an hour and half remaining in the contest we put on the 80 m stinger ready to get several Qs in the last three counties. To our displeasure we got feedback into the computer and were not able to use 80 m. Sunday morning well after the end of the contest at my house, 80 m worked fine.
Operators in 44 states found us. States not heard from were MT, ND, AR, MS, VT, and DE. Only one DX, TM6M, was able to get our attention. Our most constant customer was N6MU, John in CA, who got us in 20 of the 23 counties followed by K0AP, Dragan in KS, who got us in 15 counties. A total of 349 different calls made it to our log.
The rig was an IC-706MKIIG at 100 Watts with a Hustler "Pitchfork" antenna which can do 40, 20, and 15 m with no retuning. We used N1MM+ on a LT4004u netbook. For this 7QP we used a Mortty for keying which successfully overcame the netbook's apparent like for occasional CW stuttering.
We had a great time and thank everyone who worked us or tried to work us.
Pictures and comments from along the route
Randy operates from Monida Pass, the boundary between MT Beaverhead and ID Clark counties. Nice and open for a mountain pass plus it was good for 72 Qs which includes the two-for-one for operating from a county line.
A quick stop in ID Gooding county. The ag lands have given way to grassland countryside. Randy made 39 Qs from this county. Nice blue skies with a few clouds. This was the predominate sky for this year's 7QP.
After sunset as twilight deepened, we stopped in ID Valley county at Payette Lake in McCall. Calm lake, snowy mountains in the distance, and 27 Qs made for an enjoyable stop.
The Plan
The Plan
Jay, WA0WWW, and I will operate from one county in Montana, 19 in Idaho, and one in Washington for the 7QP on May 4 and 5, 2019 using my call, K7TQ. We will be on 80 through 20 for sure and perhaps 15 m. During the daylight hours it will be mostly 20 with excursions to 40 m around 20 minutes past the hour for 5 minutes or so. During the evening and night hours (our sunset will about 0350 UTC) we will concentrate on 40 and 80 m. You can work us each time we change bands or counties. We will try to be on CW frequencies ending in 038.5, such as 7038.5 and 14038.5 kHz.
Here is the schedule and a route map.
Here is the schedule and a route map.
May 4, 2019
May 5, 2019 (UTC)
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