2019 VERMONT QSO PARTY RESULTS

LOG ANALYSIS

AWARDS

In the Vermont competition, certificates will go out to the top 5 single op finishers and top multi op 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 2019 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 5 stations outside Vermont and stations outside Vermont working 10 or more QSO’s.

VERMONT COMPETITION

At the Host Station W1NVT in Chittenden County, conditions were challenging, but contacts were available to be made. Friday night provided a fair of QSO's on 80 and 40 meter phone, but the pileups died out quickly. When the pileups subsided, FT8 kept the QSO's coming in at a slower rate. On Saturday morning, conditions to Europe were lackluster, but we were able to establish good runs. Most of the stations were quite weak and Eastern Europe was especially tough. Eventually, 40 countries were worked on phone, so the stations were out there. In the afternoon, 20 meters settled into a constant run of stations and good rates were had all afternoon and right up into the evening. When we switched to 40 meters after 0000Z, the bottom fell out and not much was worked on phone, so it was back to FT8. Sunday morning was terrible. There was hardly any DX to speak of, and with only a limited number of stateside stations around, things were ridiculously slow until the afternoon, when the pileups picked up again. At 2330, we switched to 40 meters and continued the pileups. The number of phone QSO's were down considerably, but the addition of nearly 300 FT8 contacts helped to keep things sane. Thanks to AA1SU, KE1AZ and KI6ISG who helped me keep W1NVT on the air for long hours during the weekend.

The first five finishers in the 2019 Vermont QSO Party were the same as last year, with the exception being that KE1VT replaced KB1FRW in third place.

Joe K1VMT (Lamoille) repeated his first place finish with 143k, running high power. He ran a combination of phone, CW and RTTY. His score could have been higher, but he took time off on Sunday.

Zach W1JXN (Chittenden) repeated his second place finish with 82k, running low power. He split time between phone, CW and RTTY. He too, could have scored higher, as he wasn't available on Sunday

Kevin KE1VT (Addison) operated in his first Vermont QSO Party and took third place with a score of 79K. He used a mixture of phone and CW with a good number of multipliers on each mode.

Paul AA1SU (Chittenden) ran high power for a 4th place finish of 67k. He had one of the highest phone QSO totals and filled in with with both CW and FT8 to run up a big multiplier total as well.

Steve W1SFR (Rutland) rounds out the top five with a low power, score of 48K, a slight improvent over his last year score He added a few phone QSO's to pick up multipliers, which helped his overall score. He had the highest CW score of all stations.

Chris KI1P (Washington) was a newcomer to this year's QSO Party with an FT8-only score of 45k, just missing the top five. He had the highest FT8 score of all stations.

Scott and Cesar operating as N1GVT returned to roving this year, putting on Addison county on Friday night and Lamoille, Orleans, Caledonia and Essex counties on Saturday, to the tune of 14k points.

LOGGING

While the new FT8 mode was a big success for making QSO's, it was a real disaster in the logging deparatment. Unfortunately, none of the logging programs could directly move FT8 QSO's with grid squares into a Cabrillo format. Lots of techniques and hand-wringing were used and we finally received usuable logs. I promise that we'll have the software fixed for next year. Another issue was that the FT8 logs contained numerous duplicate contacts and also contacts without a copied grid square, which does not count for credit. All of these issues will be looked at for next year.

We continue to actively check the accuracy of logs and still find a suprising number of errors! Errors included busted call signs, bad or missing exchanges (i.e. wrong county), wrong band or mode and the dreaded NIL (not in log). Amazingly, I found our club station W1NVT logged as N1NVT and K1NVT and W1VT in some of the logs, especially some from Vermont! A rather large number of logs had the wrong band listed. Sadly, if you lost a QSO it might also mean you lose a multiplier as well. Some 30 QSO's were lost from the Vermont logs.

Vermont QSO Party Results: Outside Vermont Scores

  
AB1WG  FN34 (CHI)
K1LJL  FN34 (CHI)
K1SNO  LAM    
KA2PTE BEN
KA1PXZ ORL    
KB1MDC GRA
KB1ODO FN33 (RUT)    
KC1APK CHI 
KC1DPM WAS   
KC1IDJ ORL    
N1NPQ  RUT    
N1RCX  CHI    
N1XSS  WNS   
W1ETV  CHI
W1IL   CHI    
W1IRR  RUT    
W1OKH  CHI
W1SBW  FN33 (RUT)
W1TAM  CHI
W4YFJ  CHI
WA2MDF CHI
WB2WFJ RUT
WE1H   FN33 (RUT)
  

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