Results in from the 2012 Ontario QSO Party

Well this seems like a day for contesting…

Found out the the Ontario QSO Party (Contest Club Ontario) results posted on their webpage today…  I draw your attention to the following:

If you refer back to my blog posting of April 23rd 2012

You would get a gentle reminder that VA3PCJ, VA2EPR and myself (VA3QV) headed up to Foymount Ontario to operate QRP for the Ontario QSO Party from Foymount Ontario… 

Not only did it seem that we were the only 3 QRP Operators in Renfrew but it also seems that we were the only 3 Operators in Renfrew County because according to the final results (as follows):

Renfrew County

VA3PCJ— REN SOQRP — 741 points 

VA3QV — REN SOQRP —  432 points

VA2EPR/VE3—  REN SOQRP—  110 points

So there you have it…  What I would call a very successful mini DXPedition.  Three guys drive up the side of a mountain in a freezing rain/snow/rain storm and operate for a couple of hours and manage to sweep the top three places in our catagory.  (To be honest we were most likely  the only three who competed in our catagory but the first way sounds better to me…)

Here is a link to the results

——————————————

Now if we were to take it one small step further and you look through the results again you will notice that VA3RCS (the call I operated on the Sunday from Ottawa) managed to finish 13th out of 33 in Single Operator Low Power Phone catagory and as silly as it seems (with a single day score of  1680 pts) was also enough to be 1st in the City of Ottawa in the Single Operator Low Power Phone catagory.  This has to prove that not enough people are submitting their logs… 

So the moral of the story for all of you is that if you don’t submit your logs you can’t win and if you do submit your score you can be happily suprised at times…

Once again thanks to the Contest Club Ontario for running the contest and to all those who were there to give me the few contacts that I did get…

73bob

From the Ontario QSO Party

I got this off the Yahoo Newsgroup for the OQP and thought it would be best shared with you…

————-

One week to go! Just a reminder that the deadline for submission of logs for the Ontario QSO Party is May 18th. If you have sent in your log please check the Logs Received listing at http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/logs. htm If your call isn’t there please send paper logs to http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/contact. htm and electronic entries to http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/submitlo g.htm It was a pleasure for CCO to host this event. I hope everyone enjoyed our party!
73 Bob VE3KZ

——————-

No more putting it off…

Submit your logs

73bob

 

Ontario QSO Party– A fun time

If you ever had to catagorise Amateur Radio contests sitting right up there with the RAC Canada Day Contest and the RAC Canada Winter Contest as low stress and load of fun you would have to include the Ontario QSO Party in that group…

Sponsored by the Contest Club Ontario this is a two part contest whose main purpose seems to be to let us find out what parts of Ontario seem not to have many amateurs…  The multipliers for this contest are (1) Ontario Municipalities, (2) Canadian Provinces, (3) US States and (4) DXCC entities.  Each contact is worth one point with the exception of 3 bonus stations (VA3RAC, VA3CCO and VE3ODX) which are worth 10 points each.  So for this contest you just go wild and make as many contacts as you can on 2m, 6m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 40m, 80m and 160m and then as the exchange would give your their location (Ontario municipality or Province/State/Country) you just keep track of your multis from there.

The contest runs in two parts from Saturday at 1800utc ending on Sunday at 0500utc and then again from Sunday at 1200utc to 1800utc.  The 7 hours off in the middle of the night make it easier for the operators in the Rover catagory to put the batteries back on charge and catch a few hours sleep before they head out again,  This contest (as the province is so large) depends on rovers to activate many of the municipalities as many parts of Ontario do not have much an amateur population.  In Ontario there are just under 69,000 callsigns on the books but without looking too hard it would be easy to say that most of them are in Eastern, Central and Southern Ontario because thats where most of the population of Ontario resides…   Its because of the “Road Warriors” (rovers) that those of us in the heavily populated areas have a chance of making a “Clean Sweep” in the contest.  As you would guess thats when you are able to make contacts in all of the (by my count) 50 municipal zones across the province.

For my part I managed to give 86 contacts out which was worth 122 points with a total of  53 multis  for a total of 6466 points. 

 Not really worth “Honourable Mention” in most contest but it you think back to 2009 and the certificate on my shack wall saying that my score in 2009 of 4508 points was good enough for 1st Place (Single Operator Phone) Ottawa you never can tell.  It all depends on who submits their logs…  Actually my unsubmitted score for 2010 would have been enough to take the same catagory that year but I thought it would be embarasing to submit it…  After the results were posted I was in shock…  So no matter what this years score gets submitted…

If I could call it a “Bucket List” item ….  One of these days I am going to participate in contest from a prime location that has the antennas I need to actually be competitive.  Dunno if that means stretching out a really large loop antenna in a farmers field (with a ZERO Noise floor) or it that means looking for a place with altitude like a SOTA Location or if I should rent one of those superstations somewhere but I really would love to just once have a location where I don’t have to hide my antenna or ask my wife not to use her computer …  You get the picture…. 

I figure that if I can usually have a score that I am happy with in most contests (not a good score…  Just a score that pleases me)  then just one time with a quiet location and great antennas would give me a lasting memory that would keep me smiling for years or at least till as long as my memory lasts…

Bloggers in the contest:   Giving some fellows bloggers a shout out so to speak…  I am pleased to say that VE3HG Peter, VA3OPN Glenn and  VE3FCT Bill-  are all  in my log for the contest.  I must say that the 40m  QRP Signal from the FLEX 1500 in the VE3HG shack sounded fantastic…  Most likely there were more out there but those were the three that I can remember making it into the log.

So anyway…  Thanks to the CCO for running the contests and thanks to the 86 amateurs who made it happen for me…

73bob

6 months till the Ontario QSO Party

No don’t panic this is not the start of a countdown.  I am mentioning it because if any of you out there participate in the Ontario QSO Party this would be the time to get any suggestions on how to make it better out there for the executive to concider for this years (April 2011) event.

The contest is sponsored and administered by the Contest Club Ontario group.

.

They have a Yahoo Group which is worth joining so you can toss in your two cents worth…

For the record I am lobbying for the addition of a Portable QRP Catagory which would run in either (but not both) sessions of the contest.  You can follow my attempts if you follow the Yahoo group for the OQP.

73bob

Ontario QSO Party results in

This morning I checked my email and found out that the Contest Club Ontario has posted the results for the 2010 Ontario QSO Party.

The link to the results is here

Back in April I made mention of the QSO Party here and although I was not happy with my score I was going to submit it anyway…  Well I forgot or neglected to submit the score and by doing so missed out on anothe piece of wallpaper for the shack as my score of:

52 contacts with one special station for 61 points

29 multis

1769 points

Would of been enough to repeat as SOAB LP Phone winner for the City of Ottawa. 

Gotta have faith and confidence on my ab ilities or better yet get off my duff and do what said I would do…

Once again thanks to the CCO for running a fun event.

73bob

End of first day for OQP

Well the first 10 hours were a “hoot” so lets take a look back at what I thought my goals would be for this contest…

Have fun… 

So far the contest has been great fun!!! So its one down and  three to go…

Have a final score that is in the top half of the score sheet for the catagory I am entered in . 

This one will take a bit of time to figure out…  As it stands right now my score is 2100 points and last year the highest score in Ottawa was 3000 points.  Not sure at this time as I will have to wait and see what everyone elses score was…

I would expect to work stations on all bands 2/6/10/15/20/40/80 and 160. 

So far contacts have been made on 2/6/40/80/160 with 10/15/20 eluding me at this time.  If I am able to participate tomorrow I should make an honest contact on 20 and most likely be able to run the remaining two bands on groundwave…

 I am looking forward to my FIRST 160m contact.

DONE… VE3WIB just outside of Hawksbury Ontario is my first 160m contact

So looking at my goals we have completed 2.5 out of 4.  The chances of my score being on the plus side is a fairly sure thing and I know I will be able to make contacts on the missing bands tomorrow before things close down so  once we can guesstimate the final tally being 4 for 4…

Therefore the early predictions are for a success….

73bob

Upcoming event- ONTARIO QSO PARTY

This weekend is the weekend of the two day Ontario QSO Party which is very well managed by the Contest Club of Ontario.

The contest is run over two days but splits in the middle so everyone can have a nap and re charge their batteries.  I was never sure if that was the operators batteries or their equipments batteries.  I have never been in favour of this style of event as it tends to make people shy away from the contest if they were planning a portable station. 

(Now you know why I don’t like it…)  Bob’s Rant Starts here….

Its hard enough to get all your radio toys out to a remote location along with all the creature conforts needed for a successful opertion without having to tear down at the end of the first day… go somewhere to take your nap … and then set everything up again for the sprint to the finish….  80m and 160m can be good bands in the overnight hours and we are missing some great chances at contacts…. Especially with the 40m band being so …  whats that word I am thinking of???  OH YA  LOUSY!!! recently that in a lot of cases 80m or 160m on the Saturday evening would be my best chance of working most of Ontario…  Those bands are best in the evenings/overnights  and that chance has been taken away from me…  I’ll leave the defination of “best” for your definations but I can tell you that they are definately not “daytime bands”…—>Bob’s rant has ended…

So due to the forced “nap time” here are my plans for the Ontario QSO Party for this year…  I will be operting from home as VA3QV using my limited space long wire and praying for low noise.  I will have my omni directional horizontal loop up for 2m and there will be a 6m rotatable dipole up as well.  The dipole will be north-south so the signals will be hopefully going east west.  No rotor for this one just aim and go…

The Manotick Amateur Radio Group is planning a last minute excursion to the Baxter Conservation Center which is just south of Ottawa for the Sunday part (thats after nap time) contest.  They should be operating with their club callsign of VE3AIR.  This group is a very enthuaistic group with excellent leadership and normally give 100% effort when they go out….  Their field day effort for 2008 was very well run and operating 5A they were able to get the highest score in Canada for the class…  Not bad for their first field day…  If the contest was a straight through event they I’m sure they would of brought a very strong multi op station into the picture and would of given out lots of “OTT” contacts…  If the weather is cooperating and they can scare up enough bodies I will be joining them on Sunday.  Failing that I will be continue the 2nd day from home…  There is a slight chance that I will activate XL3RCS from the museum lighthouse as a QRP single op station but at this time its just a thought. 

Thats it for now….  more details on this later….

73bob