CQ 7QP DE K7TQ/M K7TQ/M UA3AGW UA3AGW TU 5NN IDIDA IDIDA CO? IDA IDA TU 5NN DX TU ES GL K7TQ/M TST Pretty neat for five watts to a Hamstick on the roof of my pickup parked overlooking White Bird summit in Idaho County, Idaho! I activated four counties in Idaho and one in Washington during the 2012 7QP. The Idaho counties were Valley, Adams, Idaho, and Lewis. Prior to this year Lewis Co. had never been on the air for any of the previous five 7-Land QSO Parties. In Washington I operated from Asotin County. 102 QSOs for a score of 9,090 resulted from the 8 ½ hours I was on the air using a K2 on 40, 20, and 15 meters. Friday afternoon I drove the 180 miles from home in Moscow, ID to New Meadows, ID. Fresh snow was visible in the mountains to the east where I was going to start the contest in Valley County. Saturday started with a thin layer of ice on the road to McCall in Valley County. Starting at 1300 Z on 40M I couldn’t get anyone to answer my CQs or calls to them. Keeping to my published plan, I stayed on 40 for an hour with only a single QSO to show for it. 20 produced much better and soon my planned two-hour stay was up. Without a driver, I shut down shop and drove down the now ice free road to Adams County and was on 20 within 20 minutes after leaving Valley Co. Drizzle, fog, and sleet were my intermittent companions at the pullout for the 45th parallel. Another two hours of operating on 20 and 15 yielded 33 more QSOs, but again, few answered my CQs. It was 66 miles to my operating site atop White Bird Summit in Idaho Co. I think every one of the 40 QSOs required a repeat of the IDIDA exchange. By 2200Z in Lewis County, 20M for my five watts wasn’t yielding much and 40 had very little activity I could hear. Beginning in Adams Co, I discovered that K7EAR, the EAARS operation, was a great way to start each county. I got them in all five counties. When I got to Asotin Co, WA, I needed only three more QSOs to reach 100. I got them quickly, called it a day with 8 ½ hours of operating and 5 ½ hours of driving, and headed for home. N1MM in rover mode worked well all day. If I do it again next year, I will forget about 40 and just concentrate on 20, 15, and, hopefully, 10 m. The things I will remember about the 2012 effort were the great scenery from my operating sites and the always loud signals from K7EAR. Randy/K7TQ K7TQ's Pictures
Very nice contest! My first 7QP. Bit tough with my two-element wire beam. Please be a bit more open minded towards DX stations. There IS life beyond Cape Cod, MA ;) Adu/ES1TU
The contest was very nice this year, propagation was very good both on 15m and 20m. Finally caught my two-of-three missing US states - MT and WY - and now only North Dakota remains..... Tõnis/ES5TF
I like Contests where Single operator is considered as real SO - "just a boy and his radios", where clusters and skimmers are not permited for SO entries. Gedas/LY9A
Okay, so I decided to do a full effort for 7QP. It's only a one day contest, so not a big deal, right? LOL, by late afternoon it sank in that 6 AM to midnight does indeed make for a long day. The good news is that, except for a couple of lulls, there is enough activity on the bands to keep it interesting and engaging. A major part of the fun of 7QP are the mobiles and portables. The geography of 7-land is unique with so many counties that are sparsely populated and so spread out. After working a mobile I'd ask myself "Wow, where is THAT?" and pull up Google Maps to see where they were. And I thought 18 hours of radio at home was a long day... I have nothing but thanks and appreciation for the mobiles and portables who traveled long distances to activate such rare and interesting counties! 10 meters disappointed. I heard some 10-10 operators from Dixie but did not hear any 7-landers. Anyone who worked me on 80 meters deserves a medal. I have no 80 meter antenna so I just use a tuner in the shack and feed my 40-meter dipole. I estimate an SWR of 1200 and a coax loss of 16 dB, turning my 100 watt signal into 2.5 watts out. QRP via warm coax.... Jim/K6OK
Only brief openings to G-land -- always in a queue to make contact. Mick/G3LIK
My first 7QP and it was great fun working our neighbours across the line. Very good activity from all eight states. Special kudos to the county-line portables and all the mobiles. Thanks for organizing the 7QP, see you in 2013! Gabor/VE7JH
Nice contest, seemed like plenty of activity. 80 and 40 were a bit noisy. I did mostly S&P, but it was worth doing a little running - it's amazing how many mults come that way, especially on phone. Checked a few times but never found any 7QP activity on digital. Lots of ARI on RTTY though. Jack/K3FIV
It was nice to see all the DX come out and call you. Certainly more than previous years. Also amazed by how many in-state guys I heard on 20 meters. Again, fantastic conditions on 20. 15 was OK, 10 was a no-go. Andy/KK7AC
Fun! Thanks to everyone who turned out for the contest. Kay/N3KN
Thanks again to the 7QP organizers! This was a fun Single Op effort on a three-county line. I was at a great location. Getting ready had been consuming all of my thought processes for weeks. I'll put a link to the pictures and video I took of my effort. I think I only have one picture of a worn out NG7M when I was almost done with the six-hour pack up and setup/take down. Max/NG7M
WOW!!! Another good time playing three contests at once in an attempt to wear the knobs off of two perfectly good radios. We sure had the noise on 80M once the sun went down. Other than that, this was fun once again. Thanks to all of the portable, rover, mobiles for all of the Q's and new counties. Here are the leaders: (QSO's/Counties) NX7U 9/8
NG7M 9/3
K7RE 7/7
K7IA 6/2
K7EAR 6/2
K7S 5/5
KS5A 4/3
AA5TL 4/2
AC7WJ 4/2
K7TM 3/3
WJ7TT 2/2
WT7TT 2/2
I'll be looking for all of you again next year! Tom/KV8Q
Elecraft K3/10 at 5 watts to a 74' broad-band dipole, fed with ladder line and a Matchbox tuner, up about 50'. Thanks for the Party. Lots of rovers/mobiles/portables! Dan/KE0G
Great chance to brush-up on CW skills and equipment before Field Day. I operated 6:00 am to Noon. It's always such fun to see so much activity on the air and have a chance to BE the dx for a change. :-) Big thanks go to all the rovers and portables for activating counties! Barry/K7BWH
K7AUO, the TERAC group operated again this year from the abandoned radar base near the town of Condon in Gilliam County, Oregon. Our attempt to evaluate our new 40 meter vertical was somewhat thwarted by a high noise level on that band. The weather was great while we tore down and packed up on Sunday, but cold, wet and windy the rest of the time! That notwithstanding, we hope to see you next year. Bob, W7BKN
This was my second try at 7QP (low power mixed mobile both times). This year I had a driver (a non-ham friend who enjoyed the beautiful scenery of E. Washington and W. Idaho). We had some difficulties with the homebuilt screwdriver antennas and especially difficulties with noise from an inverter that powered a laptop. After an hour, I ditched the laptop/inverter combo and did all logging on paper. Even with the delays, we made QSOs in all 19 counties on the planned route. My score nearly tripled over last year. Counties activated: IDBEN
IDKOO
IDLAT
IDNEZ
WAADA
WAASO
WACHE
WACOL
WADOU
WAFRA
WAGAR
WAGRN
WAKNG
WAKTT
WALIN
WASNO
WASPO
WAWAL
WAWHI
Darryl/WW7D/M
I had fun, and that is the point of doing this exercise. Worked from five Oregon counties, two with populations under 2,000, and two in Washington. Found some better spots than what I had been using to operate from next year and handed out some rare ones for folks. One of my spots is on a road that is closed a mile or so beyond for the winter. After my early morning operating there I made a side trip up the road to see where they had stopped this year. I found a very anxious young man. He had high-centered his mini truck in the un-plowed road. He tried to continue beyond where the Plow did. Having someone show up with a bigger truck and a tow strap to yank him out made his day! It could have been days before anyone wandered to where he was, and a long cold walk to town. Unfortunately my electric 4WD system in my 15-year old Pickup had not had any recent exercise and would not unlock from 4WD "low-range" for about an hour. I certainly did not want to go where I had planned at under 25 mph. Luckily all the solenoids dropped and it all unlocked with the right maneuver in a Motel parking lot. Same old Operator with a High Sierra Screwdriver, ALS-500M, FT100D and N1MM on a 10-year old laptop. Rick/KT7G
I had planned a large three-county line expedition to a southern area of Utah with seven other guys. We had a very successful op last year and wanted to improve upon it and give K7EAR some real competition this year. Unfortunately, the whole thing fell apart in the week prior to the contest. So, in the last minute (literally the night before) I decided to do a little mobile work. I drove to a county line and ran 40 for a while then drove back to town for a little breakfast. A while later I drove to the same county line and ran 15 for an hour before coming back down for lunch. Then, in the early afternoon I made the trip again, this time working 20 meters. Didn't have a great score, and didn't put any rare counties on the air, but it was fun and allowed me to work off some of the frustration of not being out where I had planned. My mobile station is a IC-706MKIIG and ALS-500 amp to a Hi-Q 5/80 antenna. I operate from the passenger seat, while stationary on a county line, and log on my MacBook pro running N1MM. Chose to run only phone this time... Darryl/K7UT | 