The fourth Saturday of August marked another running of Ohio’s fun contest event. Good band conditions and good weather made for a good weekend.
All the Ohio counties made it into the logs. Some, of course were more rare than others. The most common county was Lorain, anchored by Single Op High Power winner KW8N, and a very strong multioperator effort by NW8S. Warren county was the next most worked, followed by Cuyahoga.
Florida contributed the most out of state QSOs, 1491, with Michigan in second place, and then very close numbers from Texas and Pennsylvania.
The rarest overall county was Erie, with a total of 9 reported QSOs. Holmes county was missing on SSB, and Williams county was missing on CW. K8T, the winning multiop effort from Jefferson county managed to work 81 of Ohio’s 88 counties, with KW8N and out of state winner KU8E catching 80 of them.
While there were a number of familiar calls in the category top positions, we were delighted to have some new faces to be there. The Ohio low power winner was John, N8PE, from Clermont county, and the Ohio SSB champ was Bruce, N8BV of Hamilton county. And we especially welcomed a top notch mobile contester, Jim, AD4EB, who came from Tennessee to team up with Tom, KV8Q, to win the mobile category. Jim has a sister who lives in Columbus, as well his nephew Tim who did the driving for the team. We hope Jim will make a late August family visit a standing event on his calendar!
Familiar winning calls included Bob, KW8N as Ohio SO/HP, and QRP champ Kevin, W8NI. Vic, K1LT, again was the CW master; Ralph, K8RYU, the top rover; and WA3C with W3NO doing multiop as K8T. K8YR, from Preble county, took the Emergency Operation Center award.
From Georgia KU8E, was the top out of state score. Jeff is a Buckeye state native, an Ohio State graduate, and was the first chairman of the Ohio QSO Party when it resumed in 2000. Being down south was also good for Florida’s winners Tony, K2SG, the low power winner, and Tom, K3TW, once again the QRP champ. And it is of course no surprise that Lali, OM2VL, added another OhQP DX win to his long list of accomplishments.
A first time plaque, sponsored by recent Ohio immigrant W1PD, for the top score from New England, went to Bert, N4CW, who operated from Maine as K1IMI.
The Southwest Ohio DX Association took the Ohio club honors, and the Florida Contest Group the out of state honors.
The Ohio QSO Party has been sponsored since 2000 by the Mad River Radio Club, an enthusiastic group of contesters from Ohio and Michigan. The MRRC is also the sponsor of the Michigan QSO Party in April. We hope you’ll join us for that one as well. And the MRRC holds its annual “Suite in the Sun” in the Hamvention Flea Market in May. We hope you’ll stop by then to say hello and exchange tall tales about your efforts in the OhQP! And look forward to the 2025 OHQP on Saturday, August 23.
And One Log That Didn’t Quite Make It
We thank the efforts of K8MFO, who provided lots of good mobile QSOs, including the only ones with Holmes county. In Don’s words:
The was real ADVENTURE with K8ZZ, who has an efficient mobile station in his RAV-4. Unfortunately that only applies to the FRONT SEAT! The only place to house my K3S plus laptop, key, light, antenna switch, etc., twas the BACK SEAT, which turned out to be a hotbed for RF. We did a good job of eliminating that, and I learned how to use the special module in N1MM+ (really nice) for QSO parties. We also thought that the antennas, a Scorpion screwdriver intended for use on bands other than 40, and my 40 meter Hamstick were up to the task. As it turns out, the Hamstick worked great, no matter how many dozen times we hit tree limbs on our challenging route!
Before we got to Guernsey, our starting point, my laptop died a messy death! Luckily I had brought along a supply of paper log sheets!
K8ZZ is one of the primo county hunter mobiles in the country. Since he runs solo, he attempts to have an itinerary that highlights “county lines”. Those lines may be on abandoned railroad tracks or on trails that accommodate only cows and other livestock. I did not tell Ed that the OhQP does not include county lines. On a good portion of our trip, we were on gravel roads! I also did not realize at the time that the screwdriver had a problem. 20 meters was pretty much dead through the entire day, with an occasional Kansas station worked (never easy!). Ed discovered a cable problem after the OhQP was history.
Somehow a headphone size converter did not make the journey with us, so using the speaker was the only option. This drove both of us almost DEAF, since the AF GAIN had to be set high to hear signals over the road noise!
All this being said, we absolutely achieved our prime objective of having FUN!. So what if the final tally was perhaps a few hundred under a possible total, we got to see a side of Ohio that very few will see. We made friends with a lot of cows, and we gave the Hamstick a great durability test!
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Don asked that his barely legible log be considered a check log, so it was not included in the score listing. But we hope his efforts were a good training exercise to get the bugs out for future OhQP mobile excursions!