Soapbox: September 2013 Spartan Sprint

AB9CA
Was a fun sprint. Activity was more than it has been for a while. Good to see the new call alongside those more familiar. Station was the K2 at 5w to 100' wire. Activity was fairly evenly spread between 20m, with 29 Q's, and 40m, with 36 Q's. Also went to 80 for a few minutes and picked up 3 there. But the noise was pretty bad so did not stay long. The most active states were: TX - 10, MI - 9, CA - 5, CO, MN , NH, PA - 4. Good to see those Pesky Texans out in force! Thanks to everyone who stopped by. Hope to see ya'all again next month.

K5GQ
ATS-III. Nice to be able to work a SP.Heard N4BP on 20 But just could not finish contact. Signals were strong on both 40M and 20M.

K3RLL
Got late start as phone rang at exactly 9 PM EDT. (Sigh) But daughters come before radios. Nice group out tonight on 40 meters and fairly long skip. NO2D had great signal in from CO as did KE0G from MN. Tnx for all the fun, short time tonight or not.

NKØE
Another fun sprint. Ran my K1 into a multiband EFHW at 5W. Started fast on 20m but switched over to 40m after a half hour when activity disappeared. 40 was a challenge at my QTH tonight - signals were not strong and QSB was maddening at times. Still, a fun evening and a great way to wrap up the holiday weekend.

AA4GA
Same station as last month - only change was to raise up the half of my antenna that had fallen!  Now back at around 40,' and that surely helped - plus, I get the feel that condx may have been better as well, but that's hard to judge with the antenna change.  Anyway, I had 7 QSOs on 20 and 19 on 40 with KE0G and WB5BKL worked on both bands.  On my 950 mA 3S LiPo, I started with the voltage at 11.79 (the ATS rigs don't like voltage over 12v, so I don't fully charge the battery) and ended up at 11.15v, using 382 mAH of juice.  That's with a lot of CQing.  I suppose I could get a lighter battery, but I do like not having to worry about running it too low or if I'm CQing too much.  Rig again was "Sindy", the ATS-3b at 4-5 watts out, depending on band.

WØCH
Pretty good conditions here in Missouri.  I worked only 40 meters in between other tasks around the shop.  My 7AH gel cell battery doesn't help my "Skinny Score" very much!

W5ACM
Still using the ATS-3 with three 300 mAh LiPo batteries, providing 5W out and a final total of 17 QSOs this month. Once again I had a GREAT TIME! This month it was an almost even split between 20M and 40M. It started slow on 20M, but then more folks started showing up. Band conditions were very quiet, i.e. very little QRN. 40M was almost as good, but a bit noisier. I avoided excessive CQ ops so that I could make the batteries last the whole two hours. It sounded like there were a lot more folks on this month. Nice! VFB to finally work Henry W5HNS in San Antonio. It was a fabulous evening from Houston. Hoping to get my ATS-3A operational for next time!

WA5BUC
First Sprint in quite some time. Started on 20 (no Q's). Then went to 40 for 3 Q's. Fun event.

KG3W
Same station set up as August sprint. Had 2 more contacts than last month. Woo hoo! Only 2 were Michigan qso party. Bands condx were full of static crashes. Best signals  were N4BP & AB9CA. Heard Don K3RLL but could not get him on 40. Must have spent 10 minutes trying to get K5GQ. Maybe next time Mark.  Thanks everyone for 2 hours of QRP fun this evening.

AE7CG
Thanks to K4BAI, WB5BKL, and KE8M for QSOs on 20M.Rig is an MFJ Cub running 2 watts to a dipole up 10 feet.

K4BAI
Many more QSOs than in recent months.Maybe it was because of the holiday or that the Mi QRP Club had a sprint at the same time.  In any case, let's keep the activity level up.  20M was pretty good with QSOs to New England and the west coast.  Skip was fairly long with the closest QSOs being in NJ and TX.  40M was good all over.  No activity heard on 7030, but a lot of activity between 7039 and 7044 kHz.  80M was very noisy, but N8EA in MI had a good signal. QSOs by bands:  20M: 16;40M: 32; 80M: 3. Thanks for all the QSOs.

K5JHP
Bands were pretty good. Could have worked more but time was cut short.  Better next month.

WB5BKL
K3/10 @ 5W to a wire delta loop, a 40M dipole or a 40M EDZepp.  Wow - lots of activity this time.  My thanks to all of the MI QRP Sprint folks who joined in.  My last QSO might have been a little late, so I did not count it - but this sprint was still a personal best for me with 43 QSOs and 20 states.  My apologies to those I could not quite hear - we had a line of T-storms that were more-or-less stationary to the southeast of here.  My thanks to all and to the ARS sponsors.

N4BP
Overlapped with the MI QRP Labor Day Sprint.  No problem to participate in both.  In fact only one SPer was a dupe for the MI Sprint since 20M remained open only very briefly after the start of the Spartan Sprint and the remainder was spent on 40M.

W5HNS
Finally found a no-conflict 1st Monday.   Was operating /5 from Lubbock and used 20 and 40 meters.  Maybe should have stayed on 20 a tad longer but contacts were few and far between. For me, most signals were very weak including the usually strong K4BAI.  But then I am sure he was beaming up the east coast.  Was surprised to hear Texas stations on 40 meters.  Especially strong most of the time was WB5BKL and W5ACM.

NQ2W
K1 at 5W to a mini-beam at 25ft for 20m and an inverted vee at 40ft for 40m. Lots of QRN in Albany, NY on both 20m and 40m...I didn't even think about trying 80. Even through the noise, two banders were had with N4BP, K4BAI, and AB9CA. Thanks for the Qs and here's hoping for quieter conditions in October.

NK9G
Operated with Yaesu FT-450. Noisy compared to my K1 on a battery. Had Fun, lot's of activity

AB1AV
Off to a good start on 20m with ATS3, & used it for a 9:30 traffic net too. Then zapped it somehow and killed the receiver, so that was it for this month.

WA8TMI
Great conditions.  Wish I had more time. I must have a major lobe off the wire towards TX as they were coming in strong! FT2000@ 5W to the doublet. Got 5 20m and 2 on 40 before I had to go. Thanks all.