It was another busy and successful year in the Vermont QSO Party. Numbers were a bit smaller than last year’s high water mark. A contributor to this was propagation, which was OK, but not great. There were plenty of stations to work close in, but QSO’s from far a field were weak and fewer. I immediately noticed that the usual legions of California stations were missing. And West Coast stations in the higher latitudes, like Oregon and Washington were particularly scarce. I only had 3 – just 3 - VE7 stations in the log - a lot less than what I see each year and they were also running their QSO party. Only 1 Vermont station had a valid QSO with Alaska. A few claimed “AK” but they busted the abbreviation for Arkansas which is “AR”. And QSO’s to Europe were not much better. Despite contests running over there on both days, a lot less DX stations were logged than what I normally get. That makes the few Eu stations who submitted logs really special as conditions to get across were tough.
There were 21 Vermont stations submitting logs, down from 31 last year. We lost some big stations like NS1DX when the station owner decided to run the FOP contest instead. Other big signals like KB1FRW, WX1O and the 5-band FT8 operation of KI1P were missing this year. But some of our regular operators boosted up their scores somewhat. We had 2 mobile rovers going around to some of the rarer counties, one on phone and one on CW. Ultimately Vermont stations put nearly 11000 QSO’s in the log, a similar number to 2020’s results. Each one of the 14 Vermont counties were on the air, but some, like FRA and GRA were real hard to find.
Every year we get complaints like, “Where are the Vermont stations?” and “There are so few Vermont stations that
it is not worth having a contest”. Many of these comments came from west, due to the fact that longer hop conditions were
poor, and only the stations with larger antennas and power were heard out there. Sadly, 15 meters did not produce much of
an opening and 20 meters mostly provided shorter openings. There was plenty of action in the eastern part of the country.
But this must be kept in mind.
This is, after all, the Vermont QSO Party and NOT the California QSO Party.
This might come as a complete shock, but Vermont is a RARE state, with only 2100 licensed operators, and less
than 1000 General class and higher operators and only a small percentage of those with functioning HF stations.
There are a few big horses who are on all day cranking out QSO’s, but you have to carefully search for the rest.
You have to use multiple bands, multiple modes and muster all of your skills to search out some of our elusive operators.
In addition to 21 Vermont stations submitting logs, we see another 44 Vermont stations who were on the air who did not submit
a log. That’s 65 stations, spread across multiple bands and modes. The proof is that there were 10 stations outside Vermont
who were able to make between 40 and 90 contacts with Vermont stations, and most of these guys were running low power!
Vermont was in the house! You just needed the skills to know which nook and cranny to look for them.
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Top VT Stations
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Ron KK1L (Chittenden/FN34) takes the top spot with a very impressive 462k. He cut back somewhat on phone QSO’s but ran up some impressive numbers on both CW and FT8. He never admits to being a CW operator, but he certainly had some great runs there. And those big runs were done on low power giving his score a big boost. Kevin KE1VT (Addison) returned to a fixed location this year and put in a solid performance of 302k to take second place. The new yagi certainly helped! Kevin was our overall CW leader, and almost the phone leader as well as he put nearly 1500 QSO’s in the log. BUT, he was on high power and did not do the digital modes, which were the items which put KK1L into first place. Joe K1VMT (Lamoille) takes third place with a score of 118k. With his quad not functioning, he had to rely on dipoles and high power to get his signal out. Zach W1JXN (Chittenden/FN34) finishes in forth place with 102k in a one day (Saturday-only) operation. He is also sporting a new yagi and put some high power into it to run up a nice score. Cathy NQ1B (Washington/FN34) takes the fifth spot with 89k points. She was on phone but ran up a really impressive number of FT8 contacts and multipliers to put up a nice score. Mike N1JEZ (Caledonia) made this rather rare county easily available with a tremendous 1024 QSOs on phone only, high power. Paul AA1SU (Chittenden) did a similar effort on CW only with 470 QSO’s. Finally our two rovers were quite busy. Mill K1IB/R put WNS, CAL, ORA, ESS and WAS on the air on CW to the tune of 320 QSO’s. Darryl K1TTW/R put CAL, ESS and ORL (the infamous Northeast Kingdom, or NEK of Vermont) on the air on phone to the tune of 325 QSO’s. |
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You might have noticed that your score is somewhat less than you anticipated. This is due to inaccurate QSO’s removed. QSOs with busted call signs, wrong exchanges, wrong bands/modes and not in the other station’s log all cause a QSO to be removed. We don’t penalize extra QSO’s for busted information like other contests do. My call W1NVT showed up as N1NVT, N1VT and few other weird variations, at least 10 times. And K1IB/R on CW was often busted as K1EB, and 1 dit betwen WNS and WNS Sadly, some of these involved rare grids, which had the added misery of losing multipliers as well. Some stations failed to log the band and/or mode correctly. In one case, an operator’s log showed everything on 21 MHz CW, but he didn’t operate there. Be mindful of what you log! Several stations dropped out of the top 5 or top 10 based on logging errors! On FT8, stations outside Vermont logged a few non-Vermont stations, but this is to be expected since only grid squares are exchanged. Several DX stations gave 59 DX as an exchange. The correct exchange is the official country prefix, such as 59 SP, or 59 F or 59 DL. This was accepted this year, but will be counted in the future.
Some operators took the time to look up counties or grid squares on line. Please note that this is NOT OK and is considered,
well, cheating. We can spot this very quickly, so please copy all your information from the QSO and avoid lookups.
Unfortunately some FT8 stations do not provide a grid square, so if that happens, leave it blank. You will get credit for the
QSO, but not any multiplier. All of the Vermont stations on FT8 provide their grid square, so this should not be an issue for
stations outside Vermont.
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Top Outside of VT Stations
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Bob W9IZ from Indiana is this year’s winner – a repeat from last year’s great performance. His 4587 points was only 100 shy of last year. Bob combined great efforts on CW, phone and digital, all while running low power. Super job! Joel NF3R from Pennsylvania takes second place with 3611 points. He was the high score on FT8 and tied for high score on CW. His QRZ page says that he has high noise level at his QTH. I wonder what he would score under quiet conditions. The big difference in first and second place this year is the power level and multiplier. Carl NX3A from Virginia grabs the 3rd spot with 3182 points for the 3rd year in a row! Three must be his lucky number! His score came up a bit when he switched to low power. Carl was the leader in both CW and phone QSO’s and multipliers. The first and second finishers made digital contacts, which was difference. Ben NJ9J from Georgia eeked into the 4th spot with 2211 points a few FT8 contacts greatly helping out. Mark K1RO from New Hampshire returns to fixed station mode after doing Vermont roving last year. His 2052 points was good for 5th place. The next 10 spots were from callsigns we often see in the Vermont QSO Party. Notable was Anthony K8ZT who took the 13th spot with 27 QSO's and 1288 point with a mere 5 watts QRP. Missing from the top 25 scores is anyone from out West! If you were more than 1000 miles from Vermont, this wasn’t a great year. Contests are never fair! As promised, I raised the bar for certificates, with 20 QSO’s being the requirement. Some 38 hard working operators will get the colorful certificate this year. |
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In the Vermont competition, certificates will go out to the top 5 single op finishers, top multi op finisher and top rover finisher. In addition, all Vermont stations making over 100 QSO’s will also get a certificate. In the Outside Vermont competition, the “grand prize” for the 2022 Vermont QSO Party is a souvenir 3.4 oz jug of genuine Vermont Maple Syrup which goes to the top 3 Outside Vermont Single Op finishers who are within the U.S. You guys worked hard for those contacts and we recognize you with a product which is uniquely Vermont. If you’ve never had Maple Syrup before, it is very sweet and very concentrated, so a little goes a long way! Here in Vermont it is the breakfast topping of choice on pancakes, waffles or jacked deer steak (!?). Enjoy! Certificates will also go out to the top 10 stations outside Vermont and stations outside Vermont working 20 or more QSO’s. |
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There never is a high level of activity in this QSO party, but this year, there was definitely more, which we out-of-staters appreciate. finally worked Essex county, which completes all new england counties for me. Thanks K1TTW! CU next year. (W2AAB)
Fun contest. (KA0PQW)
Just a few points. (DL3DXX)
Thanks for hosting the first QSO party of the year! (KB6NU)
This is the second time that i have participated in the VT QSO Party. I am hoping to contact all counties and the two bonus stations. (WO3X)
Did not hear many stations on during the contest. (K1SO)
Thanks for hearing my QRP station! (NQ2W)
Also looking for MN and BC QSO Party stations. Surprised to find so few VT CW stations on the air. Would have been a CW entry but KC1LEB was kind enouth to give me a report while I was wandering thru SSB land. (VE3ZY)
Rig was FTDX101 and Butternut vertical. Rough sledding this year. (W1END)
Was hoping for a clean sweep in VT this year - maybe next time! Thanks to all who participated! (W9TCV)
I like to operate the QSO Party when I can. Not enough VT stations on the air. I managed to get only 4 stations. I did use spotting. (K8LF)
Pretty poor turnout from VT on CW for a 48 hour QSO party. (N7EPD)
Lots of FOC and BC activity. Not much VT heard on 20 and 15 meters. (N7WY)
Not exactly a huge turn out of VT stations.
Will probably stick to the MN and BC evnts next year. (N7MZW)
VTQP Manager replies: Not a good year to be out West and work VT.
We were on, but you didn't hear us and we didn't hear you!
Next year, I promise to order up better propagation!
I hoped to do better but prop not good to CO from VT. (NO2D)
Sorry for only 1 contact. Developed antenna problems. (W5TJS)
Another fun Vermont QSO Party is in the books. This summer, put up bigger antennas so you can work more of us!
We look forward to upcoming years of great participation.