Many thanks to Bob (K4RLC) who shares the following guest post:

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Contesting – QRP CW and POTA Style – December 2024

by Bob (K4RLC)

In December, I did the ARRL 10 Meter Contest from Jordan Lake State Recreation Area US-3844, near Apex, North Carolina. This contest is not as competitive as some of the classics like the CQ WW CW or ARRL DX CW contests, so it can afford a person with a smaller station and/or less contesting experience a good time. As the contest is held the second week in December, it basically is a daytime-only contest since propagation is virtually nonexistent after dark on 10 Meters.

For this contest weekend, I had multiple competing personal and family activities. I chose Jordan Lake State Recreational Area (US-3844), about 30 miles from our house, so I could return to Raleigh Saturday night, then drive back Sunday.

I took our Winnebago Solis, the smallest Winnebago, as Alanna and I gave up tent camping a few years ago. The Solis is a wonderful camper van on a Dodge ProMaster chassis that sleeps three, has a propane-powered furnace and two-burner stove, and a refrigerator that can be powered either by propane or by the 140 W solar panels on top of the van, loading up two 100 amp-hour AGM batteries. You can boondock for days or enjoy the luxury of “shore power.”

I went out to Jordan Lake late Friday afternoon and set up an inverted V which I hoped would provide a bit of gain. I had big plans for building gain antennas for the contest (such as a Double Half-Square Curtain array or vertical Diamond), but for various reasons, this unfortunately didn’t happen. I also wanted to operate portable just as I do my POTA and SOTA activities and not from the home QTH. The rig was the Elecraft KX2, an outstanding rig that you can pound away on for a contest, just as we do with the Elecraft K3 on Field Day.

It was already dark when the contest started Friday night. While eating the stereotypical solo male dinner of Dinty Moore Beef Stew right out of the cooking pot (Alanna didn’t accompany me for this outing), I heard only two stations—big gun stations in my own county. However, the band came alive after sunrise Saturday, with the Western and Northwestern Europeans booming in. After trying the non-resonant inverted V, it soon became apparent I would need to use my fallback antenna: a 10-foot telescoping whip, no coil, on a tripod, resting on a 3’ x 7’ piece of screen wire from Lowe’s.

Quickly, I was working such diverse stations as Finland, Germany, Scotland, and Croatia. Despite being less intense than some contests, most stations were running between 30 and 34 words a minute. For the DX exchange, after a signal report, they give the serial number of your contact. This required some pretty intense concentration and listening for my old brain, particularly as I operated in the “Unassisted” category. That is, operating without use of a computer or any other spotting and/or decoding devices. Instead, all my decoding occurred strictly between the ears—the original decoder—helped by lots of strong coffee from a Stanley French Press Coffee Maker our daughter Lauren KA4LHC gave me. Logging was with an old legal pad and Bic pen.

I was amazed at how well I did with 5 watts and the KX2. In the early stages of contests, contesters are avid to make as many easy contacts as possible and typically will give up on a harder-to-copy low-power station after one or two tries and move on. On my end, I had to try multiple times for a station to copy my call, which really slowed down my QSO rate. GM5X in Scotland was kind and patient enough to take five tries to get my call and exchange. Enjoying the beautiful park site and making good contacts, the morning quickly morphed into afternoon, at which point the first of my “other obligations” required me to stop and drive back to town.

Alanna and I had been invited to a Christmas party at the North Carolina Governor’s Mansion by outgoing Governor Roy Cooper, a wonderful and kind leader. Alanna is very tolerant of my radio adventures, but she would kill me if I missed this one. Nor would she like it if I showed up unshowered in my radio activation attire. 🙂 Notably, Gov. Cooper is a fan of amateur radio, especially appreciating its vital role in past weather emergencies and particularly recent disaster operations after the tragic results of Hurricane Helene this fall in Western North Carolina.

As access to the park was closed for the night, Alanna and I went back home still enjoying the beauty of the old Victorian governor’s mansion and its five Christmas trees, as well as being treated to North Carolina delicacies such as smoked mountain trout.

The next morning, I had volunteered to be a fill-in teacher for our adult Sunday school class, having forgotten about the contest way back. It worked well. The first scripture I taught was from the Prophet Isaiah on patience. God knows it takes a lot of patience to be a QRP CW operator. 🙂 The second scripture was from our old friend the Apostle Paul, on the virtue of joy—moving beyond temporal happiness to appreciation and praise for the joy of life infused by Our Creator.

What brings you joy and gives your life meaning? For Alanna and me, family is always first. But ham radio brings me incredible joy, both from the technical aspect of operating radios and designing antennas, as well as the incredible friends I’ve met through radio, even though I’ve never talked with some face-to-face. After teaching Sunday school and attending a spirit-filled Christmas cantata service, I rushed home to change back into radio operations attire and headed back to Jordan Lake to set up the vertical again and get back to contesting.

Sunday afternoons in contests are somewhat more relaxed. Most of the Big Guns have worked thousands of stations by then and many times will take time to listen for and work a QRP (weaker signal) operator. There are also the more casual contesters then available for contacts. So, in some ways, it was more enjoyable operating Sunday afternoon.

The weird thing is that in examining the propagation pattern, Saturday morning I was basically working Western and Northwestern Europe. Sunday afternoon, it was almost all Western United States and West and Northwest Canada, including the Northwest Territories. I even got two Hawaii contacts, but darn it, none from Alaska.

For North America, while the vertical should have been omni-directional, I did not work any stations in Areas 1, 2, or 3, but mostly west of the Mississippi. Must have been a good takeoff angle for DX.

Most of the time, I was “hunting and pouncing” for stations. I tried running, but only a few stations answered my call. I guess because I was QRP and sending in the lower 20s, the Big Guns didn’t want to answer. I also thought that since I was at a POTA site, I would have worked a lot of POTA stations; not so.

Before packing up Monday morning, I thought I would try 40 M with the inverted V and worked lots of stations with good signal reports. I still can’t figure out why the inverted V did not do well for 10 M, but I’ll try to figure that out before next December. Or, build and try one of the gain antennas at home well before the next contest.

Overall, it was a very interesting weekend between camping in the Solis; being at the Governor’s mansion reception; teaching Sunday school and attending the Christmas cantata at church; and operating the contest from Jordan Lake. The weather was chilly, but the Truma VarioHeat furnace kept the Solis super toasty—not like my old winter tent camping days in northern Michigan.

While I was generally satisfied I could work and copy the stations running in the 30s, I certainly recognized the need for more practice at higher WPM, as the 30s is not yet an easy or comfortable speed for me. This can be a New Year’s resolution.

Happy New Year to all and wishing you many great activations in 2025!

73 DE K4RLC Bob (Edited by K4AAC Alanna)

Equipment:

• Elecraft KX2
• Putikeeg CW Paddle (QRPer affiliate link)
• Wolf River Telescoping mast & tripod (no coil)
• Screen wire from Lowe’s
• Stanley Boil & Brew French Press Coffee Maker (REI)