Operating Notes: The Solar Eclipse QSO Party

I operated the Solar Eclipse QSO Party on Monday. To be honest, I’m not sure that the eclipse had that big of an effect on HF propagation. Propagation seemed to be better to the west than normal, but I’m not normally on during the afternoon, so that might just have been normal, anyway. Of course, my 100 QSOs are not all that significant in and of themselves, so we’ll have to wait until the HamSci folks crunch all of the numbers. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Having said that, I do have a few other comments about the SEQP:

1. It took me a while to get used to copying grid squares. I don’t do VHF/UHF contests, though. That may be one reason I had a hard time copying them. To be honest, a couple of times I resorted to looking someone up on QRZ.Com to get the complete grid square.
2. It was also a trick giving out RST reports other than 599. This includes both giving and receiving. Often, I would give out say a 579 report, only to have the guy come back at S9 on his second transmission. Sometimes the difference was even more than two S units. The QSB was that bad. Hopefully, the reports will all average out over the thousands of contacts that will be reported.
3. It was also kind of tricky typing in the correct RST before hitting the function keys that the N1MM contesting software uses to actually send the exchange. Think about the sequence:
   • You call “CQ SEQP.”
   • You hear someone send their callsign.
   • Based on that short transmission, you have to decide on what RST to give them.
   • Then, you have to type that RST into N1MM.
   • Finally, you have to hit the right function keys to send the exchange.
4. What I ended up doing was to first hit F5, which sent the other stations call sign, then I typed in the RST, then finally, hit F2, which sent the rest of the exchange.
5. Some guys didn’t get the memo. They were sending 599s to anyone no matter how weak or how strong. I know this because I doled out a few 449s and got 599s in return. There’s no way I was that strong if they were S4 here. I don’t think there were enough of them, though, to seriously skew the results.
6. Last, but not least, I worked four stations whose call signs spelled words: W2BEE, AC3AN, N2SO, and N4NO. I have QSLs from all of them, except for AC3AN. My card is already on its way to him. That evening, after the SEQP, I also happened to work N0YET, so it was a good day all around for me.

The post Operating Notes: The Solar Eclipse QSO Party appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

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