KSQP Participant Soapbox

Soapbox Comments in Submitted Logs
Surprised to catch 94 out of the 105 counties! Activity was much lower the 2nd day except for the mobiles. A 1 day KSQP would probably be long enough. The first day there was a solid 25 kHz or so segment of KS stations calling CQ on 20M SSB around 18Z, fb! Thanks especially to W0BH/M and XYL K0WHY/M for a total of about 130 QSO's! I also worked mobiles WY0A, K0RU/KC0SKR, K0RU, and NU0Q in a bunch of counties. Thanks for the nice turnout and congrats to W0BH for over 2500 QSO's! N8II
Too bad band conditions were so poor and that a RTTY contest wiped out the 40 meter CW band Saturday night. "NO RTTY BELOW 60" N4ARO
Congratulations on the great QSO Party-- see you in 2010 ! K0GEO
I had a great time and enjoyed working the stations I was fortunate to work. W9KVR
Thanks a lot to organizers for this nice QSO Party revival and to great efforts of W0BH, K5YAA and NU0Q mobiles who have provided me with rare Kansas counties and managed to pick up this weak Russian signal out of big local US pile-ups. First day 20 mtr stateside condx was outstanding and from time to time Bob's and Jerry's sigs were peaking s7 to 8 ! However 40 mtr even with my 3el MAG340 was nearly useless in CW due to huge EU qrm from SCC RTTY contest while SSB is still a big problem even with new extended band but old broadcasting QRM :-( . Will try to participate next year. 73's from Moscow! - Dima, UA3AGW
Operated at Hollenberg Pony Express Station, Hanover, KS K0ASA (K0NK, K0THN)
I HAD A BALL; THANKS FOR SPONSORING THE KANSAS QSO PARTY! W5ESE
Excellent activity ! Saturday 20m closed at sunset but opened again one hour later. Last QSO W0BH at 2322z. Worked W7JI for the first on 40m but it was hard to get through. Heard W0BH mobile at his sunset peak for 1 minute but too heavy pileup from the states to make it. Sunday band again closed with sundown but never recovered. Thanks to all KS station for a wonderful party. DL3DXX
The Bob and Jerry show. W0BH and K5YAA, both mobile, really stole the show dashing around Kansas on both days. Nice to see K0RU and NU0Q handing out multiple contacts on Sundy. Had a great time. 20M was the only band here; 40M was wiped out with the RTTY contest - again. Rig was TS830S, Butternut HF6V vertical. Manual copy then entered into Log-EQF software. See you next year! W1END
Had lots of fun and will be looking forward to participating next year. WY0A
Operated 100 Bonus Point Station KC0AHN for the BEARS – a financial sponsor of the Kansas QSO Party - from Butler county, KS at the residence of N0LD. Operators included: Brad Cooley, KS2V -- Jim Enix, KC0QIE -- Catherine French, KE5CEJ -- Harvey Jones, AC0EG -- Marsha Meilli, KD0FIS -- James Whitfield, N5GUI -- Randy Wing, N0LD
It was my first entry in the KSQP, I spent a nice time at radio trying to pull out stations from the noise and also trying to be heard, hihi. Prop conditions are very very bad here but I was able to work a few on 14MHz band. Congrats for the guys in charge of the organization of the party and all the KS stns and the Rover OM´s they did a FB job, WTG!!! Well, looking forward to the next... TU Best 73, Walt. - LW3EX
I had a lot of fun. There were several very skilled mobile CW ops active, notably K0RU. Thanks to all who heard my QRP/QLF CW! WB5BKL
PLEASE NOTE MULTISTATE MOBILE OPERATION -- most QSOs were made mobile in Illinois but the last three from Wisconsin. I am, by the way, AMAZED at the activity level for what is in essence a first-time QSO Party. You guys really delivered a great turnout! W9WI
O utstanding mobile team effort! Hats off to W0BH,K5YAA,NU0Q and the rest for a fantastic job! AA6YX
The few times I got on lined up with either poor propagation from MD to KS, or great propagation to the RTTY contest. Mostly all I did was just tune around to find where K5YAA and W0BH were this time. K3TN
Very poor condx. No Ks stations heard on 80M. Didn't hear anything until the last hour on Sunday. Was able to hear a few East coast stations working Kansas. Most faded out after a few minutes. Better Condx coming next year. Still had fun. KA0EIC
Rig: Elecraft K2/100 to dipole fed with ladder line. I was surprised -- and pleased -- at the interest my CQs generated. My apologies to those I couldn't copy due to my high (S8) local noise level. It was an enjoyable operating event! NB0Z
Who said KS doesn't know how to throw a party? Great times .. we will all work on the conditions for next year. Mobiles accounted for 100 of my QSO's - W0BH(35) K5YAA(30) NU0Q(15) K0RU(8) WY0A(7) NA0V(3) K0HNC(2). Thanks to the sponsors and all the KS stations for a superb weekend. KS5A
KUDOS TO W0BH, WY0A,KC0SKR AND THE OTHER HARD WORKING MOBILES! A FUN CONTEST TO WORK. W7KAM
Outstanding KS activity to kick this one off. Can't remember the last time I had more SSB Qs than CW. Top mobiles: W0BH-76, K5YAA-40, K0RU-18, NU0Q-16 and WY0A-16. Congrats to the organizers. TS-570 & 4BTV. 73... - John, N6MU
The revived Kansas QSO Party is off to a great start. Activity from Kansas was good and the mobiles were fantastic, with good signals even on SSB. W0BH (18 Q's) and K5YAA (13 Q's) are to be commended. Friday night I installed N1MM logger with instructions from the KS QP website. This was my first experience with N1MM and it worked just fine after I figured out how to correctly enter mobiles. A 5 hour power outage necessitated a period of paper logging, giving me even more practice at editing N1MM. AE8M
FT1000MP, Alpha 91b, 1KW, TH6DXX. dipole, inverted vee. Score includes 200 bonus points for QSOs with KS0KS and KC0AHN. Worked 12 all time new KS counties. Many thanks! Good job in reviving this contest. I still have a number that I will need next year. Great jobs by the mobiles, particularly W0BH/K0WHY. Thanks for all the QSOs. 73, - John, K4BAI
Fun contest and thanks to the mobiles for all the counties. KS4X
The mobile ops made this a contest! Thank you! Hope you had enough interest that you'll have the KSQP next year! Please look out for the Arizona QSO Party coming up on Oct 10-11! Check out http://www.azqsoparty.org for details! KE7DX
Great contest. Never heard a KS station on 20M - all on 40M. W0BH, NU0Q, WY0A, K0RU, K5YAA, NA0V, K0HNC kept folks busy with counties. Caught up with KS0KS but never heard the other bonus station on cw. Band faded out before the mobiles stopped running on Sat night, and took a while to shorten up to hear them again on Sat morning. Missed half a dozen that way. Excellent coverage by mobiles. Can't ask for much more - other than sunspots making 20, 15, and 10 wide open! I'm sending in my paper log with 120 Q - guess that makes the sponsor unhappy, but I'm not doing computer logs yet. They'll just have to get used to paper logs or I'll simply not bother next year. This year I have to send in logs since it is Year of the State QSOS party....and I need the KS sticker!... hi hi If they have that rule next year about not being eligible for plaque if your paper log is over 50 contacts......well, I"ll not bother to send in log. Takes time to do. N4CD
Not much action on 80/75 : prop seemed short for WNY on both 40 and 20 mobiles kept everybody happy-happy. Thanks! WB2ABD
700 clocked miles from Claremore, OK through 21 Kansas counties and back to Claremore. The WX was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear skies both days. Equipment and the vehicle performed flawlessly. Operator almost as good! Only mess up was sitting in a fellas driveway off on a side road. I was surprised by him and what looked like his large brother. They drove up next to me and asked "Can we help you?". I said, no just making radio contacts around the country. Figured they would leave. Nope - the smaller of the two said "You're in my driveway". I quickly said - "Well, I'll move." They said no - that's OK. Funny thing was - the drive had a large iron fence blocking it ( rusty fence ) and the structure on the property looked like 1910 or maybe even earlier. Hay was stored in one room because you could see it - no window in that particular room. There was something that looked like a barn but it was caved in on itself - no hay could be stored there. When I first pulled up to get off the road I figured nobody lives here so shouldn't be a problem to stop for a bit. Figured wrong. I didn't chose anything that resembled a driveway to stop on the rest of the trip. Just because a place looks uninhabitable doesn't necessarily mean somebody doesn't like it! You get real focused on working people in these things from a mobile. I'm in COW on 40 CW and get a call from AA0MZ. I send 599 COW and receive 599 NEM. I scratched my head a bit and asked "NE or NM?" I get back NEM. OK I think - maybe I've been copying too much CW. I ask again "NE or NM?" - some other station says quickly - Kansas. I figure it out - this is my first and ends up being my only KS QSO for the entire trip. Thanks AA0MZ and sorry I was trying to put you out of state. I could have used NE - it was one of 8 states I didn't work - others were OK, ID, HI, NV, ND, SD, and ME. Might have worked some of those on SSB but was 99% CW. Worked 4 Canadian provinces and several DX stations. Most notable were DL3DXX, UA3AGW, HA8IB and LW3EX. I believe I worked DL3DXX in all but 2 or 3 of the 21 counties. Good signals from other DLs as well. Thanks to the stations who showed up many, many times. You helped keep the long road short. Also, thanks to all who listened to the bug spurtin extra dits or lumps of dits rounding curves. The weighted arm just leaned over and wouldn't diddle so, now and then a 5 became a long T. I made some time through the counties after I figured out how to send, log and watch the road all at the same time. Only time I had to pay real close attention was in Wichita - construction on the freeway caused a stint of stop and go traffic. I had 2 hours left Saturday evening after completing my intended counties so retired early. Might could have added a couple of counties but tired was setting in so stayed with the original plan. There were many stations that were present both days and in most if not all the counties I moved through. Thanks for that effort. That's why the mobile end is so much fun - large numbers of callers - large signals and great operators hollerin at you. Once in a while I would just morse out a comment – maybe traffic, maybe WX or something about the countryside. Every time I did that, someone would Roger me. Thanks for riding along and a special thanks to W0BH for his efforts in seeing this party get in the books. Hopefully a number of county hunting stations filled in some blanks. K5YAA
This was my son's last weekend at home before going off to college so I took him golfing on Saturday - 18 holes. Checked the bands when I got home around 0100Z and nothing was heard from KS on any band or mode. Sunday I drove him to Oswego (3 hrs each way) and never got a chance to get on the air. I checked RTTY a number of times Saturday and didn't see any KS stations. Score includes 200 bonus points. Mobile stalwarts W0BH and K5YAA had beautiful signals and were beacons from each county. Thanks to all the other mobiles too. Please mark your calendars Oct. 17 for the NY QSO Party. This will be the first NYQP in over 25 years. 73, - Tom, N2CU
100 w , 4-BTV ant. 40M = big disappointment, Weak signals and RTTY interference. 80/15/10 = nothing heard. Mobiles did a great job. Top three: W0BH 43 Q's, K5YAA 19, NU0Q 10, W2LHL
Only about 3 hours on Sunday in this one. Hopefully be back next year for the entire contest. 73, - Paul, N4PN
From KC, MO I'm too close for 20m and above and I don't have my vhf antennas up. Worked W0BH 11 times. Nice KsQP website. KC0MO
A very busy weekend, but I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours chasing mobiles around The Sunflower State. Band conditions were not the best. From the sound of the pile-up W0BH (Bob) had going in the last 10 minutes, it looks as if the KS QSO Party was very successful. A job well done! Special thanks to all the mobiles and rovers. 73 - Rick WB8JUI
Worked both KS0KS and KC0AHN for 200 pts bonus. Outstanding job by the mobile ops. Thanks for activating all those counties! Mobile QSOs: W0BH/m 26, K5YAA/m 7, K0HNC/m 7, NU0Q/m 5, K0RU/m 5, NA0V/m 3, WY0A/m 2. WF7T
GOOD TO HAVE THE KANSAS QSO PARTY BACK. GOT KS0KS FOR 100 BONUS POINTS. AC0E
Band conditions were not very good but still enjoyed operating in the QSO Party contest. W7JI
TNXS TO ALL MOBILES: W0BH 26, K5YAA 18, NU0Q 16, K0HNC 5, TNXS FOR A VERY NICE JOB. JOHN, N9FC
Very difficult to work Kansas on 20M from here. Never heard activity on 80CW. KO7X
KSQP Thank you very much for including Youth catagory. I hope you have lots of entries for that. I am a coach for the Young Amateur Contest Ham Team (YACHT) and we highlighted your qso party this year. 40 and 20 meters only this year, hope next year does better. Thanks to the mobiles. W0BH/M was everywhere on both bands for phone and CW, lots of work. All the mobiles did a FB job as I made most of my county's with them. Using a Kenwood TS-2000 with a tri-bander at 120 ft and a vertical R-7 for 40 CW. Had lots of fun and I hope you do it next year. KS8O
One watt output to TH3MK4 at 45 Ft. Part Time Effort. 100 point bonus for KC0AHN. K4OD
Rig: Ten Tec Omni VII, Ameritron ALS-600 400-500w, Antenna: 176' CF @ 60'. I didn't have a lot of time over the weekend to play in this one. Propagation was not that great to KS from here, although a few stations were extremely strong on 20m. The YODX test and the RTTY test running at the same time did not help. I found very few stations to work and of the 56 Q's only 24 different station were worked. Normally I do not work SSB but there were very few stations to work on CW so I had to dig out a microphone. If it were not for W0BH (13 Q's) and K5YAA (11 Q's) this would have been a very boring event. Hopefully there will be more activity from KS stations if this is run again next year. Perhaps a better time could be found. The RTTY activity on 40 in the evenings made that band useless for CW. I didn't check but maybe some of that RTTY activity was KS stations but from the general lack of activity from KS that I heard I doubt it. 73, - Puck, W4PM
This is my first contest! I made 55 contacts operating from 0900cdt to 1800cdt 8-29-09. All were digital using PSK31. I had contacts from 26 states, a Canadian province, and one contact from Asiatic Russia. Thanks, 73, - Bill, WA0ARM
Great time. Thanks for all the Qs. Jim, K0RH
Wow ... What a BLAST. We had a lot of fun, thanks to everyone who worked us. Marshall CO should have never been on our list, we never made it that far west. I don’t know what I was thinking when I had that on the list. We swung south out of Nemaha through Pott, never made it over to Marshall. (Might make for a good weekend run though) Clay, I had a special request for Clay via email but there was no way I was going to be able to pull that one off, it was also to far west, I thought a quick Shot through Riley then maybe after Pott, but it would have been too tough just couldn’t get that one on the schedule. Lyon, yeah right, my navigator (SSB OP KC0SKR) say, hey take 75 south avoid the toll road on 335. Ah Ok, well guess what, when you take 75 south out of Topeka you miss Lyon county completely where as if we would have stayed on our original route (I-335 Toll) we would have popped off I-335 right in Lyon and then jumped back East to 75 South. Oh well, we missed it and just kept rolling South. Anderson, Franklin, Miami, Linn. No way, we ran out of time. Last call was Allen/Bourbon and the pileup was nuts. I ended up cutting several off the list due to the fact we ran over.. (past 3 pm) I chopped I think 4 calls from the log because it was beyond the time limit. I know I would have easily racketed up several more if I had another hour. Sorry for the cut guys. This was my first time running with a SSB op, Oh My God that is so SLOW. Man I would have fallen asleep if I ever ran counties as a SSB op. Ugh, I don’t know how those people do that. It was just Way too boring for me, I much rather enjoy the CW runs better. Del, KC0SKR loved the SSB runs. It was his first time ever to run any counties and at first he was really nervous of course and stumbled over this and that but wow he caught on real fast and then he had a few good runs. There definitely wasn’t as much SSB activity as there was CW. Thanks for all the SSB ops who were patient with Del, everyone did great. I would have to say the most exciting moment was when we hit the ALLEN/BOURBON county line run. Obviously we were running out of time and we knew it, so to conserve and be able to work as many as we could and try to get through ALLEN/BOURBON line to Anderson (which I really wanted to run, because I knew it was a most wanted) I said to Del, I’m going to run the key/CW and drive while you Log and we’ll run the County line road. Road was an overstatement, because it was far from being a road, the GPS showed it as a road, but it was a 2 track cow path. Now mind you I’m driving my 2005 Lincoln Town car, Rig- Yaesu FT-857d, Antenna (20, 30 & 40 mtr hustler loads) & Yaesu FC20 Auto Tuner in the trunk. We start out ok, 25 to 30 MPH this should be ok, up and down the rolling hills we go on a two track path, winding and turning as we follow the GPS and the county line when all of a sudden, where in the world did the road go? We were looking over a ledge, straight down a steep drop off toward a creek bed, that had what you would consider to be a plank/cement/walk-way wide crossing, or so called bridge? (far from any bridge I’ve ever seen). As we break the ledge of the cliff we realize we’re already committed to this deal, and over we go downward toward this so called bridge/plank thingy across the water way. Del says, hey it don’t look like Its wide enough for your car, I said lean to one side and roll the car up on 2 wheels. We laugh and approach it slowly and realize the car will just barely fit on the planks and away we went across the Planks puckering up thinking the planks would give way any moment and we would be in the creek. They held up and on we went, we both looked at each other in amazement and that little glare of stupidity rang throughout the vehicle for a moment as we said Holy &#!% we made it hahaha. Other than all the DUST in the trunk of my car and Del's finger marks clawed into the dashboard from hanging on while I was driving 70 MPH and running 35 wpm CW on the fly... The car held up just fine. Unfortunately we were not able to reach Anderson and the remaining counties in time the clock ran out. Maybe next year. 73 - Rob, K0RU
Not exactly a blistering rate (it took about 4.5 hours to make the first 100 Q's), but decent activity for an inaugural event. You could tell that guys who never worked contests were encouraged by the organizers and clubs to get on the air. Around 16-18Z, there was a pretty solid 25 khz swath of KS stations running guys on 20 phone with a few more around the edges. The ugly was good prior to Eu leading to a lot of confusing signals working the YODX test and a RTTY test causing plenty of QRM on 40; this did discourage the contest neophytes from CQ'ing and bury some who were CQ'ing including the mobiles. I only managed to add about a dozen new fixed stations on Sunday by CQ'ing; activity was down quite a bit from the day before. I didn't use spots, too unchallenging, and still managed to work 94 of the 105 counties. Knowing where W0BH was by his published schedule helped log a few Q's on 40 CW that would have been guesswork otherwise. And speaking of Bob, he and Lorna, K0WHY activated 36 counties, 35 of which I logged and Q's with them were an incredible 98 with W0BH/M and 32 with K0WHY/M. Many thanks for 39% of my total KSQP QSO's! They logged about 1000 miles total trip to do that! The only time we were able to work on 40 phone was in the last 2 hours Saturday. By the time 40 opened well to KS around 23Z, activity on phone was pretty low even though there were plenty of clear frequencies, and the QRM killed CW. Thanks to the other mobiles for the QSO's and some new counties: K5YAA – 26 Q's, WY0A - 21 phone Q's, NU0Q - 15 Q's, K0RU - 11, KC0SKR (with K0RU) 7 phone, NA0V -5 phone. Thanks to W0BH, N0LD, and the Boeing ARC and others for the turnout and sponsorship. N8II
Sorry for the late post, school has kept me pretty busy this week. I had a great time despite a couple of problems I ended up having. I got up 30min after it started on Saturday and scrambled to find a logger to use. I finally ended up using Writelog with the TQP module...big mistake. It took me about 4 hours to fix the log to cabrillo format after the contest. My logging computer died about an hour into the contest but I found a way to recover the "lost" Q's, thankfully. Thanks to the mobile and fixed guys for getting on and making this a great party. W0BH - 75 Q, K5YAA - 27 Q, WY0A - 24 Q, NU0Q - 16 Q, K0RU - 13 Q, K0HNC & KC0SKR - Tied at 7 Q, NA0V - 5 Q, K0JJM - 3 Q. Hope to hear y'all on in TQP, Sept 26/27, from NX5M. Colin, KU5B
This was first contest using my ATS-3B QRP transciever from KD1JV. My highlights were being called by a UA3 and a DL3. 40 meters was overrun with RTTY stations. Time in contest was limited by family activities. But I had a great time. 73, - Ray Franz, WB0SMZ
After all the work getting the new Kansas QSO Party off the ground, it was finally time to enjoy the actual event. Mother nature can be really brutal in late August in Kansas, but this year we had absolutely perfect weather as XYL Lorna / K0WHY and I headed out at 7:00am enroute to our first county line 80 miles to the west. The only sad note was the loss of our 12-year-old black Lab, Sasha, a few days before. Sasha often rode along with us on trips and likely heard all of you on the air through the speaker from time to time. She particularly enjoyed the county line stops with Lorna. This trip was for her. Last summer in Wyoming while enroute to British Columbia, I had just finished running a rare county with my Icom706MkIIG when we started smelling something burning. Lorna looked in the mirror and saw thick smoke pouring out of the radio and clouding around Sasha who was in the middle seat next to the remote installation. Power off, windows open, emergency stop, luckily no flames, but of course the radio was toast. I had my Icom 7000 along as a backup, so decided to drop the 706 off in Washington for an estimate as we drove by Icom America. Didn’t think I’d ever see it again, but the 706 is now back in my van with a new filter board and a distinctive “smoky” smell. My equipment configuration is pretty welled tuned in the Astro van (264,000 miles young) and hasnâ€™t changed in the last few QSO parties with one exception. I added an external 12v cooling fan to continuously blow air over the 706. It worked great and will be a fixture from now on. From the 706 with Logikey K-4 keyer and MFJ travel paddle, I’m using three Hustler vertical sets on triple mag-mounts: 20SSB/40SSB/10, 20CW/40CW/15 and 80CW. Two Dell laptops run NA with keying, rig control and DeLorme GPS and Street Atlas software. The only equipment issue this time was low mike audio going through the MFJ voice keyer. A number of you like to ask Lorna for a SSB Q as we’re driving along, so I have a second mike available for her. The action was so fierce this time that I really didn’t need the voice keyer, and Lorna just talked louder! Saturday - we arrived at the Reno/Rice county line about 15 minutes early, so I had time to take a few pictures. Using my GPS, I always put together a “flight plan” with estimated times of arrival at each county. The route was ambitious with 25 counties scheduled for Saturday, but Lorna promised to keep me on schedule and be ruthless when I asked for more time in a county. It worked .. we stayed on schedule the entire day! For me, Saturday was a blur. I usually have time to enjoy the sights as we drive along, but the pileups started immediately and really never let up. Western Kansas has some beautiful scenery, so occasionally Lorna would “force” my attention outside. Back logging at the computer, I’d jump from 40CW to 20CW, then SSB if I had time (and usually did). It amazed me how many would be there waiting for me when I changed bands or modes .. some really experienced and savvy ops out there! Since Kansas hasn’t had a QSO party in a number of years, many of my counties were “rare” ones for county hunters, which added to the fun. The only time I had a break was when we covered a county enroute to a line, then had to return out through that same county to get to the next one. I could still make Qs, but took some time off for a sandwich or to catch my breath. The story of this trip is that for once, there are very few “stories” to tell. The only Saturday snag was trying to get to the Hamilton / Greeley / Wichita county line. We had a choice of going one of two routes, and the route we picked stopped because of a partially completed housing subdivision out in the middle of nowhere. That cost us 15 minutes of backtracking while band conditions took a momentary dive, so there are only 18 Qs from Hamilton county in my log. Another noteworthy event was running through a small “dust devil” with partially opened windows. The inside of the van and computer screens were instantly covered in a film of dust, which stayed with us the rest of the trip. Other than some fierce RTTY competition on 40 later in the day, 20 and 40 stayed good. At least I didn’t have to go down to 7021 to get away from the RTTY like I did in Oklahoma. I also went to 80CW the last hour with excellent results. Should have gone there sooner, and should have went to 40SSB more as well. I did check 15 and 10 from time to time, but no luck. We ended Saturday with 1,616 combined Qs in the log for 12 hours work and headed 15 miles to Burlington CO for an overnight stop at Lorna’s cousins house. Sunday - after a great breakfast we headed out into a cool, cloudy morning. My goal was to start out part way through Cheyenne county (the furthest northwest county in Kansas) since I knew it would be tight making the final three counties in my run. It was not to be. Instead, we were still in Sherman and 30 minutes away from Cheyenne when the bell rang for Round 2. I’d worked Sherman on 40 and 80 the previous night, so started out on 20 CW. Finally, the Cheyenne county sign appeared as did a big pileup. Unfortunately, I sent CHE for Cheyenne instead of the correct CHY. Since CHE is Cherokee county, which just happens to be the furthest southeast county in Kansas, I’m sure some were confused. John, N6MU and Jeff, N8II teamed up to correct my mistake and I changed the computer macro, but then everyone heard a “new” county and called me again. I logged the dupes and all are now logged as CHY, so if you worked me first thing on Sunday morning, check your log. Sorry for the confusion and a big thanks to John and Jeff for helping me minimize the damage. It’s been my experience in the Oklahoma and Texas QSO Parties that six-hour Sundays are often busier than Saturdays. Sunday in Kansas definitely started out that way, so I was expecting a really phenomenal run when I got to the Graham / Rooks county line. The run was good, but powerline noise made conditions almost unbearable. Lots of folks really wanted those two counties, so rather than leave, I asked whether Lincoln, Russell, and Ellsworth counties had been covered on Saturday. Many said they had, so I decided to drop those last three counties from my route and finish out the run, which put me back on (my new) schedule. On Sunday it always feels like you’re racing the clock, so I’d planned a “shortcut” to get to the last Jewell / Osborne / Mitchell three-county line. The gravel road turned to sand and then to bumpy sand. I’d just gone to SSB, so quite a few heard Lorna and I discussing whether we really should go over the dubious-looking bridge standing between us and the finish line. We did and we made it, but there was some luck involved. Lorna had to dodge big holes, bumps, and cows before we finally got back on pavement for a mile, then more sand to arrive at the line. It seemed to take forever. By the time we arrived, I could just feel you all out there. I set up the computer, told everyone I was taking a final sip of green tea, took a deep breath, and QRZ? The next 37 minutes were the stuff of mobile contester dreams. 279 contacts later, I could finally breath again. Incredible. Thank you thank you all for your patience and operating courtesy! That run brought the Sunday six-hour total to 1002 Qs for a final total of 2616 Qs including Lorna’s 71 contacts. So how do you follow that? I finally got out of the van to stretch and take my first really good look around. As I was operating, I vaguely remember Lorna chatting with a farmer who was driving by wondering what was up. Her explanation must have been good, because he said his dad was a ham and might stop by later. And so he did, 80+ year-old K0EQD, Wilford, who owns some land nearby. His first comment to me was with a twinkle in his eye, “You know you’re right where three counties come together?” I did indeed! Lorna and I very much enjoyed our chat with Wilford over the next half hour. He sent us on our way with two big watermelons from the back of his loaded pickup and an invitation to come back again next year. Count on it! Stats: We operated 16.8 hours, 2616 combined Qs, 398 unique calls, 35 dupes. Lorna ended up with 71 contacts in her log. States not worked : VT DE HI AK UT SD Canadian mults not worked : QC MR NT. KS worked : NEM JOH OSA WYA ROO. DX worked : DL UA XE CU DL3DXX (27 times) and UA3AGW (18 times) ! Six-hour Rates (W0BH only) Saturday 1400-1959 145 Qs/hr Saturday 2000-0159 114 Qs/hr Sunday 1400-1959 164 Qs/hr Last 37 minute rate: 452 Qs/hr Total Bob : 2510 Qs 50 mults = 332,100 Total Lorna : 71 Qs 7 mults = 994 County Breakdown (in visited order) Saturday (500 miles during the QP) 1 REN 41 Reno 2 RIC 40 Rice 3 STA 80 Stafford 4 EDW 114 Edwards 5 FOR 54 Ford 6 HOG 54 Hodgeman 7 PAW 66 Pawnee 8 BRT 43 Barton 9 RUS 73 Rush 10 ELL 78 Ellis 11 TRE 59 Trego 12 NES 110 Ness 13 LAN 56 Lane 14 GOV 112 Gove 15 SHE 55 Sheridan 16 THO 55 Thomas 17 LOG 56 Logan 18 SCO 75 Scott 19 FIN 52 Finney 20 KEA 45 Kearny 21 WIC 56 Wichita 22 HAM 18 Hamilton 23 GLY 44 Greeley 24 WAL 59 Wallace 25 SMN 86 Sherman (also started there on Sunday) Sunday ( 210 miles during the QP) 26 CHY 67 Cheyenne 27 RAW 76 Rawlins 28 DEC 75 Decatur 29 NOR 79 Norton 30 PHI 96 Phillips 31 GRM 70 Graham 32 ROO 70 Rooks 33 SMI 117 Smith 34 JEW 93 Jewell 35 OSB 93 Osborne 36 MIT 93 Mitchell Some phenomenal numbers by some incredible ops .. the highest I’ve had to date. N8II reported 98 Qs with me in his report. I had him with 97 and two dupes .. likely my fault when I switched bands and logged before the computer rig control caught up. And what else can one say about John, N6MU? Once again, he was the only one to work me in all my counties, and he does it all with low power and low antennas! Special thanks to the following ops for 10 or (way) more contacts: 97 : N8II and 35/36 counties 79 : K4ZGB and 27/36 counties 76 : N6MU and 36/36 counties 70 : KU5B and 30/36 counties 63 : NN8L 53 : KO1U 52 : N4IG NT2A 49 : K4BAI 43 : W2LHL 41 : N9FC 39 : K9CS 38 : AA6YX WB2ABD 34 : KS5A N4VA 32 : N4CD 31 : N4PJ 27 : DL3DXX W4RQ 25 : WB8YYY 22 : W0GXQ WF7T 21 : N2CU 20 : N9QS 19 : KS8O N0ZA N3KR 18 : AE8M KC8CY UA3AGW W6RLL 17 : K0GEO W0ZQ 16 : KD8GOX NU4C 15 : AD1C KE7DX KM1C N9HDE 14 : K4YT K9NW KC3X VE3GXW W7KAM 13 : KO7X N2JJ W4PM WB0PYF 12 : K6LJC K8QWY KS4X N4MM NM2L W4GNS W5ESE W9DC 11 : K3TN K5AEM K9EN KC0MO KD8HB W4IX 10 : K6WSC K9AAA KD7WIZ KE0G N5MLP W1END WB4YZA Kansas mobiles worked: NU0Q/m W0BH Award Winners First Place Very Honorable Mention Most overall Qs: N8II/97 K4ZGB/79 N6MU/76 Most CW Qs: N8II/62 K4ZGB/51 NN8L/48 Most PH Qs: N8II/35 N6MU/30 K4ZGB/28 Most counties: N6MU/36 N8II/35 N4IG/33 Lorna and I drove a total of 1021 miles round trip from Kansas and would do it again tomorrow if we could (well, at least I would!). Thanks to Randy (N0LD) for coordinating the event, to Kent (KB0RWI) for the great web site, to the other sponsors, and to the volunteers who worked hard and will continue to work hard over the next months. Finally, special thanks to the mobiles and Kansas portable and base stations for being there and for putting what will likely turn out to be 99/105 counties on the air. Until next year when we'll get them all! 73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why
Karen and I set out to combine the QSO party with some sight-seeing. We started out from the in-laws' driveway in Sedgwick County. I had a few problems at first, which I expected since I was using a new computer, new software (CQ/X), new keyer, and new GPS. In Chase County, I called CQ on SSB three times without answer and decided that CW was more fun, so we ended up being a CW-only mobile entry. It wasn't part of the plan, but we stopped at the tallgrass visitor center in Chase County and spent half an hour looking around. Then we headed north and, after a short detour to Wabaunsee County, drove into Manhattan and ate lunch at Wendy's, which is actually on the county line! Then we headed to Rock City, a small tourist attraction in Ottawa County. We then went to check in early at the hotel in Salina before heading west to Mushroom Rock State Park. After a short trip to Rice County, we went to McPherson County, where we had a steak dinner in a local restaurant. By then, it was dark, and I hoped to get on 80 meters, but the antenna wouldn't tune that low. Sorry about that. With all of the breaks, my operating time on Saturday was about 6 hours out of the 12 allowed. We got started early Sunday and made it to the Post Rock Scenic Byway in Lincoln and Russell Counties right at 1400z. I kept operating while my wife stopped to take pictures of the lake and the world's largest souvenir travel plate! Then we headed up to Osborne County. We got great pileups there, so we went west to Rooks for more pileups. I also hoped to be close enough to catch W0BH from there, and we did finally work him while he was in Phillips before we left Rooks. That was our only KS qso! From there, we headed south to Hays, stopped for lunch and gas, and then headed west to Trego County to drive the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway. We spent a lot of time looking for the bluffs and found ourselves on really bad gravel roads. With less than an hour left, we headed for Ness and Lane Counties. We ran out of time in Lane and never got to 40 meters. I made almost as many QSOs on Sunday as I did on Saturday. Thanks to everyone for following us around. We didn't make things easy for you, as we were pretty unpredictable, but I hope you got some multipliers and maybe some all-time new counties. Bill, NU0Q
GETTING A GRAND DAUGHTER OFF TO COLLEGE DID NOT LEAVE A LOT OF TIME TO PLAY RADIO. THANKS TO ALL THE STATIONS FIXED AND MOBILE! Joe, W8KNO
Great fun, even with 100mW. Terrific job by K5YAA. That lad has ears. Bill, K4KSR
Welcome back, guys. Glad to get some rare Kansas counties again. Signals were down up here in Washington, but heard 21. CU next year, I hope! N7EIE
Great mobile effort! Hat off to W0BH, K5YAA, NU0Q and the rest of the mobile teams! AA6YX
GREAT TO HEAR MY KANSAS ON THE AIR! I MISS TOPEKA! THANKS FOR SPONSORING THIS! K0LDS
ENJOYED CONTEST. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE MOBILE OPERATORS. VE3GXW
Just a few contacts before church on Sunday morning. NG7Z
Thanks for the fun event hope to do it again next year. NA0V
All counties were activated,well very easy to get it all, but not from this side at all the time grrr... DL8USA
Many thanks to all the 'Road Warriors' out there. 79% of the counties worked were in mobiles and 77% of the QSOs were mobiles. K5AEM
Also appreciate KC0AHN getting on 80 meters for me to have a chance to get 100 pts. Local counties can work them ground wave but the rest of us can't. Not complaining, just tips...very enjoyable contest. AA0MZ

Soapbox Comments in Submitted Logs

Surprised to catch 94 out of the 105 counties! Activity was much lower the 2nd day except for the mobiles. A 1 day KSQP would probably be long enough. The first day there was a solid 25 kHz or so segment of KS stations calling CQ on 20M SSB around 18Z, fb! Thanks especially to W0BH/M and XYL K0WHY/M for a total of about 130 QSO's! I also worked mobiles WY0A, K0RU/KC0SKR, K0RU, and NU0Q in a bunch of counties. Thanks for the nice turnout and congrats to W0BH for over 2500 QSO's!

N8II

Too bad band conditions were so poor and that a RTTY contest wiped out the 40 meter CW band Saturday night. "NO RTTY BELOW 60"

N4ARO

Congratulations on the great QSO Party-- see you in 2010 !

K0GEO

I had a great time and enjoyed working the stations I was fortunate to work.

W9KVR

Thanks a lot to organizers for this nice QSO Party revival and to great efforts of W0BH, K5YAA and NU0Q mobiles who have provided me with rare Kansas counties and managed to pick up this weak Russian signal out of big local US pile-ups. First day 20 mtr stateside condx was outstanding and from time to time Bob's and Jerry's sigs were peaking s7 to 8 ! However 40 mtr even with my 3el MAG340 was nearly useless in CW due to huge EU qrm from SCC RTTY contest while SSB is still a big problem even with new extended band but old broadcasting QRM :-( . Will try to participate next year.

73's from Moscow! - Dima, UA3AGW

Operated at Hollenberg Pony Express Station, Hanover, KS

K0ASA (K0NK, K0THN)

I HAD A BALL; THANKS FOR SPONSORING THE KANSAS QSO PARTY!

W5ESE

Excellent activity ! Saturday 20m closed at sunset but opened again one hour later. Last QSO W0BH at 2322z. Worked W7JI for the first on 40m but it was hard to get through. Heard W0BH mobile at his sunset peak for 1 minute but too heavy pileup from the states to make it. Sunday band again closed with sundown but never recovered. Thanks to all KS station for a wonderful party.

DL3DXX

The Bob and Jerry show. W0BH and K5YAA, both mobile, really stole the show dashing around Kansas on both days. Nice to see K0RU and NU0Q handing out multiple contacts on Sundy. Had a great time. 20M was the only band here; 40M was wiped out with the RTTY contest - again. Rig was TS830S, Butternut HF6V vertical. Manual copy then entered into Log-EQF software. See you next year!

W1END

Had lots of fun and will be looking forward to participating next year.

WY0A

Operated 100 Bonus Point Station KC0AHN for the BEARS – a financial sponsor of the Kansas QSO Party - from Butler county, KS at the residence of N0LD. Operators included: Brad Cooley, KS2V -- Jim Enix, KC0QIE -- Catherine French, KE5CEJ -- Harvey Jones, AC0EG -- Marsha Meilli, KD0FIS -- James Whitfield, N5GUI -- Randy Wing, N0LD

It was my first entry in the KSQP, I spent a nice time at radio trying to pull out stations from the noise and also trying to be heard, hihi. Prop conditions are very very bad here but I was able to work a few on 14MHz band. Congrats for the guys in charge of the organization of the party and all the KS stns and the Rover OM´s they did a FB job, WTG!!! Well, looking forward to the next...

TU Best 73, Walt. - LW3EX

I had a lot of fun. There were several very skilled mobile CW ops active, notably K0RU. Thanks to all who heard my QRP/QLF CW!

WB5BKL

PLEASE NOTE MULTISTATE MOBILE OPERATION -- most QSOs were made mobile in Illinois but the last three from Wisconsin. I am, by the way, AMAZED at the activity level for what is in essence a first-time QSO Party. You guys really delivered a great turnout!

W9WI

O utstanding mobile team effort! Hats off to W0BH,K5YAA,NU0Q and the rest for a fantastic job!

AA6YX

The few times I got on lined up with either poor propagation from MD to KS, or great propagation to the RTTY contest. Mostly all I did was just tune around to find where K5YAA and W0BH were this time.

K3TN

Very poor condx. No Ks stations heard on 80M. Didn't hear anything until the last hour on Sunday. Was able to hear a few East coast stations working Kansas. Most faded out after a few minutes. Better Condx coming next year. Still had fun.

KA0EIC

Rig: Elecraft K2/100 to dipole fed with ladder line. I was surprised -- and pleased -- at the interest my CQs generated. My apologies to those I couldn't copy due to my high (S8) local noise level. It was an enjoyable operating event!

NB0Z

Who said KS doesn't know how to throw a party? Great times .. we will all work on the conditions for next year. Mobiles accounted for 100 of my QSO's - W0BH(35) K5YAA(30) NU0Q(15) K0RU(8) WY0A(7) NA0V(3) K0HNC(2). Thanks to the sponsors and all the KS stations for a superb weekend.

KS5A

KUDOS TO W0BH, WY0A,KC0SKR AND THE OTHER HARD WORKING MOBILES! A FUN CONTEST TO WORK.

W7KAM

Outstanding KS activity to kick this one off. Can't remember the last time I had more SSB Qs than CW. Top mobiles: W0BH-76, K5YAA-40, K0RU-18, NU0Q-16 and WY0A-16. Congrats to the organizers. TS-570 & 4BTV.

73... - John, N6MU

The revived Kansas QSO Party is off to a great start. Activity from Kansas was good and the mobiles were fantastic, with good signals even on SSB. W0BH (18 Q's) and K5YAA (13 Q's) are to be commended. Friday night I installed N1MM logger with instructions from the KS QP website. This was my first experience with N1MM and it worked just fine after I figured out how to correctly enter mobiles. A 5 hour power outage necessitated a period of paper logging, giving me even more practice at editing N1MM.

AE8M

FT1000MP, Alpha 91b, 1KW, TH6DXX. dipole, inverted vee. Score includes 200 bonus points for QSOs with KS0KS and KC0AHN. Worked 12 all time new KS counties. Many thanks! Good job in reviving this contest. I still have a number that I will need next year. Great jobs by the mobiles, particularly W0BH/K0WHY. Thanks for all the QSOs.

73, - John, K4BAI

Fun contest and thanks to the mobiles for all the counties.

KS4X

The mobile ops made this a contest! Thank you! Hope you had enough interest that you'll have the KSQP next year! Please look out for the Arizona QSO Party coming up on Oct 10-11! Check out http://www.azqsoparty.org for details!

KE7DX

Great contest. Never heard a KS station on 20M - all on 40M. W0BH, NU0Q, WY0A, K0RU, K5YAA, NA0V, K0HNC kept folks busy with counties. Caught up with KS0KS but never heard the other bonus station on cw. Band faded out before the mobiles stopped running on Sat night, and took a while to shorten up to hear them again on Sat morning. Missed half a dozen that way. Excellent coverage by mobiles. Can't ask for much more - other than sunspots making 20, 15, and 10 wide open! I'm sending in my paper log with 120 Q - guess that makes the sponsor unhappy, but I'm not doing computer logs yet. They'll just have to get used to paper logs or I'll simply not bother next year. This year I have to send in logs since it is Year of the State QSOS party....and I need the KS sticker!... hi hi If they have that rule next year about not being eligible for plaque if your paper log is over 50 contacts......well, I"ll not bother to send in log. Takes time to do.

N4CD

Not much action on 80/75 : prop seemed short for WNY on both 40 and 20 mobiles kept everybody happy-happy. Thanks!

WB2ABD

700 clocked miles from Claremore, OK through 21 Kansas counties and back to Claremore. The WX was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear skies both days. Equipment and the vehicle performed flawlessly. Operator almost as good! Only mess up was sitting in a fellas driveway off on a side road. I was surprised by him and what looked like his large brother. They drove up next to me and asked "Can we help you?". I said, no just making radio contacts around the country. Figured they would leave. Nope - the smaller of the two said "You're in my driveway". I quickly said - "Well, I'll move." They said no - that's OK. Funny thing was - the drive had a large iron fence blocking it ( rusty fence ) and the structure on the property looked like 1910 or maybe even earlier. Hay was stored in one room because you could see it - no window in that particular room. There was something that looked like a barn but it was caved in on itself - no hay could be stored there. When I first pulled up to get off the road I figured nobody lives here so shouldn't be a problem to stop for a bit. Figured wrong. I didn't chose anything that resembled a driveway to stop on the rest of the trip. Just because a place looks uninhabitable doesn't necessarily mean somebody doesn't like it! You get real focused on working people in these things from a mobile. I'm in COW on 40 CW and get a call from AA0MZ. I send 599 COW and receive 599 NEM. I scratched my head a bit and asked "NE or NM?" I get back NEM. OK I think - maybe I've been copying too much CW. I ask again "NE or NM?" - some other station says quickly - Kansas. I figure it out - this is my first and ends up being my only KS QSO for the entire trip. Thanks AA0MZ and sorry I was trying to put you out of state. I could have used NE - it was one of 8 states I didn't work - others were OK, ID, HI, NV, ND, SD, and ME. Might have worked some of those on SSB but was 99% CW. Worked 4 Canadian provinces and several DX stations. Most notable were DL3DXX, UA3AGW, HA8IB and LW3EX. I believe I worked DL3DXX in all but 2 or 3 of the 21 counties. Good signals from other DLs as well. Thanks to the stations who showed up many, many times. You helped keep the long road short. Also, thanks to all who listened to the bug spurtin extra dits or lumps of dits rounding curves. The weighted arm just leaned over and wouldn't diddle so, now and then a 5 became a long T. I made some time through the counties after I figured out how to send, log and watch the road all at the same time. Only time I had to pay real close attention was in Wichita - construction on the freeway caused a stint of stop and go traffic. I had 2 hours left Saturday evening after completing my intended counties so retired early. Might could have added a couple of counties but tired was setting in so stayed with the original plan. There were many stations that were present both days and in most if not all the counties I moved through. Thanks for that effort. That's why the mobile end is so much fun - large numbers of callers - large signals and great operators hollerin at you. Once in a while I would just morse out a comment – maybe traffic, maybe WX or something about the countryside. Every time I did that, someone would Roger me. Thanks for riding along and a special thanks to W0BH for his efforts in seeing this party get in the books. Hopefully a number of county hunting stations filled in some blanks.

K5YAA

This was my son's last weekend at home before going off to college so I took him golfing on Saturday - 18 holes. Checked the bands when I got home around 0100Z and nothing was heard from KS on any band or mode. Sunday I drove him to Oswego (3 hrs each way) and never got a chance to get on the air. I checked RTTY a number of times Saturday and didn't see any KS stations. Score includes 200 bonus points. Mobile stalwarts W0BH and K5YAA had beautiful signals and were beacons from each county. Thanks to all the other mobiles too. Please mark your calendars Oct. 17 for the NY QSO Party. This will be the first NYQP in over 25 years.

73, - Tom, N2CU

100 w , 4-BTV ant. 40M = big disappointment, Weak signals and RTTY interference. 80/15/10 = nothing heard. Mobiles did a great job. Top three: W0BH 43 Q's, K5YAA 19, NU0Q 10,

W2LHL

Only about 3 hours on Sunday in this one. Hopefully be back next year for the entire contest.

73, - Paul, N4PN

From KC, MO I'm too close for 20m and above and I don't have my vhf antennas up. Worked W0BH 11 times. Nice KsQP website.

KC0MO

A very busy weekend, but I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours chasing mobiles around The Sunflower State. Band conditions were not the best.

From the sound of the pile-up W0BH (Bob) had going in the last 10 minutes, it looks as if the KS QSO Party was very successful. A job well done! Special thanks to all the mobiles and rovers.

73 - Rick WB8JUI

Worked both KS0KS and KC0AHN for 200 pts bonus. Outstanding job by the mobile ops. Thanks for activating all those counties! Mobile QSOs: W0BH/m 26, K5YAA/m 7, K0HNC/m 7, NU0Q/m 5, K0RU/m 5, NA0V/m 3, WY0A/m 2.

WF7T

GOOD TO HAVE THE KANSAS QSO PARTY BACK. GOT KS0KS FOR 100 BONUS POINTS.

AC0E

Band conditions were not very good but still enjoyed operating in the QSO Party contest.

W7JI

TNXS TO ALL MOBILES: W0BH 26, K5YAA 18, NU0Q 16, K0HNC 5, TNXS FOR A VERY NICE JOB.

JOHN, N9FC

Very difficult to work Kansas on 20M from here. Never heard activity on 80CW.

KO7X

KSQP Thank you very much for including Youth catagory. I hope you have lots of entries for that. I am a coach for the Young Amateur Contest Ham Team (YACHT) and we highlighted your qso party this year. 40 and 20 meters only this year, hope next year does better. Thanks to the mobiles. W0BH/M was everywhere on both bands for phone and CW, lots of work. All the mobiles did a FB job as I made most of my county's with them. Using a Kenwood TS-2000 with a tri-bander at 120 ft and a vertical R-7 for 40 CW. Had lots of fun and I hope you do it next year.

KS8O

One watt output to TH3MK4 at 45 Ft. Part Time Effort. 100 point bonus for KC0AHN.

K4OD

Rig: Ten Tec Omni VII, Ameritron ALS-600 400-500w, Antenna: 176' CF @ 60'. I didn't have a lot of time over the weekend to play in this one. Propagation was not that great to KS from here, although a few stations were extremely strong on 20m. The YODX test and the RTTY test running at the same time did not help. I found very few stations to work and of the 56 Q's only 24 different station were worked. Normally I do not work SSB but there were very few stations to work on CW so I had to dig out a microphone. If it were not for W0BH (13 Q's) and K5YAA (11 Q's) this would have been a very boring event. Hopefully there will be more activity from KS stations if this is run again next year. Perhaps a better time could be found. The RTTY activity on 40 in the evenings made that band useless for CW. I didn't check but maybe some of that RTTY activity was KS stations but from the general lack of activity from KS that I heard I doubt it.

73, - Puck, W4PM

This is my first contest! I made 55 contacts operating from 0900cdt to 1800cdt 8-29-09. All were digital using PSK31. I had contacts from 26 states, a Canadian province, and one contact from Asiatic Russia. Thanks,

73, - Bill, WA0ARM

Great time. Thanks for all the Qs.

Jim, K0RH

Wow ... What a BLAST. We had a lot of fun, thanks to everyone who worked us. Marshall CO should have never been on our list, we never made it that far west. I don’t know what I was thinking when I had that on the list. We swung south out of Nemaha through Pott, never made it over to Marshall. (Might make for a good weekend run though) Clay, I had a special request for Clay via email but there was no way I was going to be able to pull that one off, it was also to far west, I thought a quick Shot through Riley then maybe after Pott, but it would have been too tough just couldn’t get that one on the schedule. Lyon, yeah right, my navigator (SSB OP KC0SKR) say, hey take 75 south avoid the toll road on 335. Ah Ok, well guess what, when you take 75 south out of Topeka you miss Lyon county completely where as if we would have stayed on our original route (I-335 Toll) we would have popped off I-335 right in Lyon and then jumped back East to 75 South. Oh well, we missed it and just kept rolling South. Anderson, Franklin, Miami, Linn. No way, we ran out of time. Last call was Allen/Bourbon and the pileup was nuts. I ended up cutting several off the list due to the fact we ran over.. (past 3 pm) I chopped I think 4 calls from the log because it was beyond the time limit. I know I would have easily racketed up several more if I had another hour. Sorry for the cut guys. This was my first time running with a SSB op, Oh My God that is so SLOW. Man I would have fallen asleep if I ever ran counties as a SSB op. Ugh, I don’t know how those people do that. It was just Way too boring for me, I much rather enjoy the CW runs better. Del, KC0SKR loved the SSB runs. It was his first time ever to run any counties and at first he was really nervous of course and stumbled over this and that but wow he caught on real fast and then he had a few good runs. There definitely wasn’t as much SSB activity as there was CW. Thanks for all the SSB ops who were patient with Del, everyone did great. I would have to say the most exciting moment was when we hit the ALLEN/BOURBON county line run. Obviously we were running out of time and we knew it, so to conserve and be able to work as many as we could and try to get through ALLEN/BOURBON line to Anderson (which I really wanted to run, because I knew it was a most wanted) I said to Del, I’m going to run the key/CW and drive while you Log and we’ll run the County line road. Road was an overstatement, because it was far from being a road, the GPS showed it as a road, but it was a 2 track cow path. Now mind you I’m driving my 2005 Lincoln Town car, Rig- Yaesu FT-857d, Antenna (20, 30 & 40 mtr hustler loads) & Yaesu FC20 Auto Tuner in the trunk. We start out ok, 25 to 30 MPH this should be ok, up and down the rolling hills we go on a two track path, winding and turning as we follow the GPS and the county line when all of a sudden, where in the world did the road go? We were looking over a ledge, straight down a steep drop off toward a creek bed, that had what you would consider to be a plank/cement/walk-way wide crossing, or so called bridge? (far from any bridge I’ve ever seen). As we break the ledge of the cliff we realize we’re already committed to this deal, and over we go downward toward this so called bridge/plank thingy across the water way. Del says, hey it don’t look like Its wide enough for your car, I said lean to one side and roll the car up on 2 wheels. We laugh and approach it slowly and realize the car will just barely fit on the planks and away we went across the Planks puckering up thinking the planks would give way any moment and we would be in the creek. They held up and on we went, we both looked at each other in amazement and that little glare of stupidity rang throughout the vehicle for a moment as we said Holy &#!% we made it hahaha. Other than all the DUST in the trunk of my car and Del's finger marks clawed into the dashboard from hanging on while I was driving 70 MPH and running 35 wpm CW on the fly... The car held up just fine. Unfortunately we were not able to reach Anderson and the remaining counties in time the clock ran out. Maybe next year.

73 - Rob, K0RU

Not exactly a blistering rate (it took about 4.5 hours to make the first 100 Q's), but decent activity for an inaugural event. You could tell that guys who never worked contests were encouraged by the organizers and clubs to get on the air. Around 16-18Z, there was a pretty solid 25 khz swath of KS stations running guys on 20 phone with a few more around the edges. The ugly was good prior to Eu leading to a lot of confusing signals working the YODX test and a RTTY test causing plenty of QRM on 40; this did discourage the contest neophytes from CQ'ing and bury some who were CQ'ing including the mobiles. I only managed to add about a dozen new fixed stations on Sunday by CQ'ing; activity was down quite a bit from the day before. I didn't use spots, too unchallenging, and still managed to work 94 of the 105 counties. Knowing where W0BH was by his published schedule helped log a few Q's on 40 CW that would have been guesswork otherwise. And speaking of Bob, he and Lorna, K0WHY activated 36 counties, 35 of which I logged and Q's with them were an incredible 98 with W0BH/M and 32 with K0WHY/M. Many thanks for 39% of my total KSQP QSO's! They logged about 1000 miles total trip to do that! The only time we were able to work on 40 phone was in the last 2 hours Saturday. By the time 40 opened well to KS around 23Z, activity on phone was pretty low even though there were plenty of clear frequencies, and the QRM killed CW. Thanks to the other mobiles for the QSO's and some new counties: K5YAA – 26 Q's, WY0A - 21 phone Q's, NU0Q - 15 Q's, K0RU - 11, KC0SKR (with K0RU) 7 phone, NA0V -5 phone. Thanks to W0BH, N0LD, and the Boeing ARC and others for the turnout and sponsorship.

N8II

Sorry for the late post, school has kept me pretty busy this week. I had a great time despite a couple of problems I ended up having. I got up 30min after it started on Saturday and scrambled to find a logger to use. I finally ended up using Writelog with the TQP module...big mistake. It took me about 4 hours to fix the log to cabrillo format after the contest. My logging computer died about an hour into the contest but I found a way to recover the "lost" Q's, thankfully. Thanks to the mobile and fixed guys for getting on and making this a great party. W0BH - 75 Q, K5YAA - 27 Q, WY0A - 24 Q, NU0Q - 16 Q, K0RU - 13 Q, K0HNC & KC0SKR - Tied at 7 Q, NA0V - 5 Q, K0JJM - 3 Q. Hope to hear y'all on in TQP, Sept 26/27, from NX5M.

Colin, KU5B

This was first contest using my ATS-3B QRP transciever from KD1JV. My highlights were being called by a UA3 and a DL3. 40 meters was overrun with RTTY stations. Time in contest was limited by family activities. But I had a great time.

73, - Ray Franz, WB0SMZ

After all the work getting the new Kansas QSO Party off the ground, it was finally time to enjoy the actual event. Mother nature can be really brutal in late August in Kansas, but this year we had absolutely perfect weather as XYL Lorna / K0WHY and I headed out at 7:00am enroute to our first county line 80 miles to the west. The only sad note was the loss of our 12-year-old black Lab, Sasha, a few days before. Sasha often rode along with us on trips and likely heard all of you on the air through the speaker from time to time. She particularly enjoyed the county line stops with Lorna. This trip was for her. Last summer in Wyoming while enroute to British Columbia, I had just finished running a rare county with my Icom706MkIIG when we started smelling something burning. Lorna looked in the mirror and saw thick smoke pouring out of the radio and clouding around Sasha who was in the middle seat next to the remote installation. Power off, windows open, emergency stop, luckily no flames, but of course the radio was toast. I had my Icom 7000 along as a backup, so decided to drop the 706 off in Washington for an estimate as we drove by Icom America. Didn’t think I’d ever see it again, but the 706 is now back in my van with a new filter board and a distinctive “smoky” smell. My equipment configuration is pretty welled tuned in the Astro van (264,000 miles young) and hasnâ€™t changed in the last few QSO parties with one exception. I added an external 12v cooling fan to continuously blow air over the 706. It worked great and will be a fixture from now on. From the 706 with Logikey K-4 keyer and MFJ travel paddle, I’m using three Hustler vertical sets on triple mag-mounts: 20SSB/40SSB/10, 20CW/40CW/15 and 80CW. Two Dell laptops run NA with keying, rig control and DeLorme GPS and Street Atlas software. The only equipment issue this time was low mike audio going through the MFJ voice keyer. A number of you like to ask Lorna for a SSB Q as we’re driving along, so I have a second mike available for her. The action was so fierce this time that I really didn’t need the voice keyer, and Lorna just talked louder! Saturday - we arrived at the Reno/Rice county line about 15 minutes early, so I had time to take a few pictures. Using my GPS, I always put together a “flight plan” with estimated times of arrival at each county. The route was ambitious with 25 counties scheduled for Saturday, but Lorna promised to keep me on schedule and be ruthless when I asked for more time in a county. It worked .. we stayed on schedule the entire day! For me, Saturday was a blur. I usually have time to enjoy the sights as we drive along, but the pileups started immediately and really never let up. Western Kansas has some beautiful scenery, so occasionally Lorna would “force” my attention outside. Back logging at the computer, I’d jump from 40CW to 20CW, then SSB if I had time (and usually did). It amazed me how many would be there waiting for me when I changed bands or modes .. some really experienced and savvy ops out there! Since Kansas hasn’t had a QSO party in a number of years, many of my counties were “rare” ones for county hunters, which added to the fun. The only time I had a break was when we covered a county enroute to a line, then had to return out through that same county to get to the next one. I could still make Qs, but took some time off for a sandwich or to catch my breath. The story of this trip is that for once, there are very few “stories” to tell. The only Saturday snag was trying to get to the Hamilton / Greeley / Wichita county line. We had a choice of going one of two routes, and the route we picked stopped because of a partially completed housing subdivision out in the middle of nowhere. That cost us 15 minutes of backtracking while band conditions took a momentary dive, so there are only 18 Qs from Hamilton county in my log. Another noteworthy event was running through a small “dust devil” with partially opened windows. The inside of the van and computer screens were instantly covered in a film of dust, which stayed with us the rest of the trip. Other than some fierce RTTY competition on 40 later in the day, 20 and 40 stayed good. At least I didn’t have to go down to 7021 to get away from the

RTTY like I did in Oklahoma. I also went to 80CW the last hour with excellent results. Should have gone there sooner, and should have went to 40SSB more as well. I did check 15 and 10 from time to time, but no luck. We ended Saturday with 1,616 combined Qs in the log for 12 hours work and headed 15 miles to Burlington CO for an overnight stop at Lorna’s cousins house. Sunday - after a great breakfast we headed out into a cool, cloudy morning. My goal was to start out part way through Cheyenne county (the furthest northwest county in Kansas) since I knew it would be tight making the final three counties in my run. It was not to be. Instead, we were still in Sherman and 30 minutes away from Cheyenne when the bell rang for Round 2. I’d worked Sherman on 40 and 80 the previous night, so started out on 20 CW. Finally, the Cheyenne county sign appeared as did a big pileup. Unfortunately, I sent CHE for Cheyenne instead of the correct CHY. Since CHE is Cherokee county, which just happens to be the furthest southeast county in Kansas, I’m sure some were confused. John, N6MU and Jeff, N8II teamed up to correct my mistake and I changed the computer macro, but then everyone heard a “new” county and called me again. I logged the dupes and all are now logged as CHY, so if you worked me first thing on Sunday morning, check your log. Sorry for the confusion and a big thanks to John and Jeff for helping me minimize the damage. It’s been my experience in the Oklahoma and Texas QSO Parties that six-hour Sundays are often busier than Saturdays. Sunday in Kansas definitely started out that way, so I was expecting a really phenomenal run when I got to the Graham / Rooks county line. The run was good, but powerline noise made conditions almost unbearable. Lots of folks really wanted those two counties, so rather than leave, I asked whether Lincoln, Russell, and Ellsworth counties had been covered on Saturday. Many said they had, so I decided to drop those last three counties from my route and finish out the run, which put me back on (my new) schedule. On Sunday it always feels like you’re racing the clock, so I’d planned a “shortcut” to get to the last Jewell / Osborne / Mitchell three-county line. The gravel road turned to sand and then to bumpy sand. I’d just gone to SSB, so quite a few heard Lorna and I discussing whether we really should go over the dubious-looking bridge standing between us and the finish line. We did and we made it, but there was some luck involved. Lorna had to dodge big holes, bumps, and cows before we finally got back on pavement for a mile, then more sand to arrive at the line. It seemed to take forever. By the time we arrived, I could just feel you all out there. I set up the computer, told everyone I was taking a final sip of green tea, took a deep breath, and QRZ? The next 37 minutes were the stuff of mobile contester dreams. 279 contacts later, I could finally breath again. Incredible. Thank you thank you all for your patience and operating courtesy! That run brought the Sunday six-hour total to 1002 Qs for a final total of 2616 Qs including Lorna’s 71 contacts. So how do you follow that? I finally got out of the van to stretch and take my first really good look around. As I was operating, I vaguely remember Lorna chatting with a farmer who was driving by wondering what was up. Her explanation must have been good, because he said his dad was a ham and might stop by later. And so he did, 80+ year-old K0EQD, Wilford, who owns some land nearby. His first comment to me was with a twinkle in his eye, “You know you’re right where three counties come together?” I did indeed! Lorna and I very much enjoyed our chat with Wilford over the next half hour. He sent us on our way with two big watermelons from the back of his loaded pickup and an invitation to come back again next year. Count on it!

Stats: We operated 16.8 hours, 2616 combined Qs, 398 unique calls, 35 dupes. Lorna

ended up with 71 contacts in her log. States not worked : VT DE HI AK UT SD

Canadian mults not worked : QC MR NT. KS worked : NEM JOH OSA WYA ROO. DX worked : DL UA XE CU DL3DXX (27 times) and UA3AGW (18 times) !

Six-hour Rates (W0BH only)

Saturday 1400-1959 145 Qs/hr

Saturday 2000-0159 114 Qs/hr

Sunday 1400-1959 164 Qs/hr

Last 37 minute rate: 452 Qs/hr

Total Bob : 2510 Qs 50 mults = 332,100

Total Lorna : 71 Qs 7 mults = 994

County Breakdown (in visited order)

Saturday (500 miles during the QP)

1 REN 41 Reno

2 RIC 40 Rice

3 STA 80 Stafford

4 EDW 114 Edwards

5 FOR 54 Ford

6 HOG 54 Hodgeman

7 PAW 66 Pawnee

8 BRT 43 Barton

9 RUS 73 Rush

10 ELL 78 Ellis

11 TRE 59 Trego

12 NES 110 Ness

13 LAN 56 Lane

14 GOV 112 Gove

15 SHE 55 Sheridan

16 THO 55 Thomas

17 LOG 56 Logan

18 SCO 75 Scott

19 FIN 52 Finney

20 KEA 45 Kearny

21 WIC 56 Wichita

22 HAM 18 Hamilton

23 GLY 44 Greeley

24 WAL 59 Wallace

25 SMN 86 Sherman (also started there on Sunday)

Sunday ( 210 miles during the QP)

26 CHY 67 Cheyenne

27 RAW 76 Rawlins

28 DEC 75 Decatur

29 NOR 79 Norton

30 PHI 96 Phillips

31 GRM 70 Graham

32 ROO 70 Rooks

33 SMI 117 Smith

34 JEW 93 Jewell

35 OSB 93 Osborne

36 MIT 93 Mitchell

Some phenomenal numbers by some incredible ops .. the highest I’ve had to date. N8II reported 98 Qs with me in his report. I had him with 97 and two dupes .. likely my fault when I switched bands and logged before the computer rig control caught up. And what else can one say about John, N6MU? Once again, he was the only one to work me in all my counties, and he does it all with low power and low antennas! Special thanks to the following ops for 10 or (way) more contacts:

97 : N8II and 35/36 counties

79 : K4ZGB and 27/36 counties

76 : N6MU and 36/36 counties

70 : KU5B and 30/36 counties

63 : NN8L

53 : KO1U

52 : N4IG NT2A

49 : K4BAI

43 : W2LHL

41 : N9FC

39 : K9CS

38 : AA6YX WB2ABD

34 : KS5A N4VA

32 : N4CD

31 : N4PJ

27 : DL3DXX W4RQ

25 : WB8YYY

22 : W0GXQ WF7T

21 : N2CU

20 : N9QS

19 : KS8O N0ZA N3KR

18 : AE8M KC8CY UA3AGW W6RLL

17 : K0GEO W0ZQ

16 : KD8GOX NU4C

15 : AD1C KE7DX KM1C N9HDE

14 : K4YT K9NW KC3X VE3GXW W7KAM

13 : KO7X N2JJ W4PM WB0PYF

12 : K6LJC K8QWY KS4X N4MM NM2L W4GNS W5ESE W9DC

11 : K3TN K5AEM K9EN KC0MO KD8HB W4IX

10 : K6WSC K9AAA KD7WIZ KE0G N5MLP W1END WB4YZA

Kansas mobiles worked: NU0Q/m

W0BH Award Winners

First Place Very Honorable Mention

Most overall Qs: N8II/97 K4ZGB/79 N6MU/76

Most CW Qs: N8II/62 K4ZGB/51 NN8L/48

Most PH Qs: N8II/35 N6MU/30 K4ZGB/28

Most counties: N6MU/36 N8II/35 N4IG/33

Lorna and I drove a total of 1021 miles round trip from Kansas and would do it again tomorrow if we could (well, at least I would!). Thanks to Randy (N0LD) for coordinating the event, to Kent (KB0RWI) for the great web site, to the other sponsors, and to the volunteers who worked hard and will continue to work hard over the next months. Finally, special thanks to the mobiles and Kansas portable and base stations for being there and for putting what will likely turn out to be 99/105 counties on the air. Until next year when we'll get them all!

73, Bob/w0bh and Lorna/k0why

Karen and I set out to combine the QSO party with some sight-seeing. We started out from the in-laws' driveway in Sedgwick County. I had a few problems at first, which I expected since I was using a new computer, new software (CQ/X), new keyer, and new GPS. In Chase County, I called CQ on SSB three times without answer and decided that CW was more fun, so we ended up being a CW-only mobile entry. It wasn't part of the plan, but we stopped at the tallgrass visitor center in Chase County and spent half an hour looking around. Then we headed north and, after a short detour to Wabaunsee County, drove into Manhattan and ate lunch at Wendy's, which is actually on the county line! Then we headed to Rock City, a small tourist attraction in Ottawa County. We then went to check in early at the hotel in Salina before heading west to Mushroom Rock State Park. After a short trip to Rice County, we went to McPherson County, where we had a steak dinner in a local restaurant. By then, it was dark, and I hoped to get on 80 meters, but the antenna wouldn't tune that low. Sorry about that. With all of the breaks, my operating time on Saturday was about 6 hours out of the 12 allowed. We got started early Sunday and made it to the Post Rock Scenic Byway in Lincoln and Russell Counties right at 1400z. I kept operating while my wife stopped to take pictures of the lake and the world's largest souvenir travel plate! Then we headed up to Osborne County. We got great pileups there, so we went west to Rooks for more pileups. I also hoped to be close enough to catch W0BH from there, and we did finally work him while he was in Phillips before we left Rooks. That was our only KS qso! From there, we headed south to Hays, stopped for lunch and gas, and then headed west to Trego County to drive the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway. We spent a lot of time looking for the bluffs and found ourselves on really bad gravel roads. With less than an hour left, we headed for Ness and Lane Counties. We ran out of time in Lane and never got to 40 meters. I made almost as many QSOs on Sunday as I did on Saturday. Thanks to everyone for following us around. We didn't make things easy for you, as we were pretty unpredictable, but I hope you got some multipliers and maybe some all-time new counties.

Bill, NU0Q

GETTING A GRAND DAUGHTER OFF TO COLLEGE DID NOT LEAVE A LOT OF TIME TO PLAY RADIO. THANKS TO ALL THE STATIONS FIXED AND MOBILE!

Joe, W8KNO

Great fun, even with 100mW. Terrific job by K5YAA. That lad has ears.

Bill, K4KSR

Welcome back, guys. Glad to get some rare Kansas counties again. Signals were down up here in Washington, but heard 21. CU next year, I hope!

N7EIE

Great mobile effort! Hat off to W0BH, K5YAA, NU0Q and the rest of the mobile teams!

AA6YX

GREAT TO HEAR MY KANSAS ON THE AIR! I MISS TOPEKA! THANKS FOR SPONSORING THIS!

K0LDS

ENJOYED CONTEST. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE MOBILE OPERATORS.

VE3GXW

Just a few contacts before church on Sunday morning.

NG7Z

Thanks for the fun event hope to do it again next year.

NA0V

All counties were activated,well very easy to get it all, but not from this side at all the time grrr...

DL8USA

Many thanks to all the 'Road Warriors' out there. 79% of the counties worked were in mobiles and 77% of the QSOs were mobiles.

K5AEM

Also appreciate KC0AHN getting on 80 meters for me to have a chance to get 100 pts. Local counties can work them ground wave but the rest of us can't. Not complaining, just tips...very enjoyable contest.

AA0MZ