NAQP Aug 2011 RTTY: Goals

It is my plan to put in a full 1-hour effort this coming Saturday, July 16 beginning at 1800Z to operate in the NCJ sponsored, North American QSO Party, RTTY. Historically, RTTY has been my strongest mode, in fact I put one of my best contests together in the February, 2010 NAQP RTTY contest, but followed it up with a sub par showing 6 months later (less than 200 QSO).

Recent conditions have not been all that good, considering what we had a few months back, but it does look like we might be in luck this weekend as the SFI and SSN continues to increase, but the A-Index is still holding in double digits. So based on what I did last year in the July contest I will set a goal of 300 QSO with 115 multipliers. This would give me a score of just over 47,000 points, but I am aiming for 50,000 total points, which means my QSO/mult numbers are coming in on the low side.

With any luck it will be a 4 band contest for me. While I expect very little activity on 10M, I do hope 80M provides some points this time around. Being a bit limited with the SteppIR BigIR, I do the best I can, but unfortunately there are times where I just cannot get the East Coast to hear me. Guess we wait and see what happens this weekend.

I do expect an improvement on 15/20 with the new Rohn H50 now up. I still have to get it raised to 40′ but expect it to performance like a rock, as it has done since I built it in 2009. While it won’t be used much in this contest when I point the antenna to 40-45 degrees for NAQP I have added a rotor to the shack, so no more running outside to change direction.