BRINGING OUT THE TROOPS FOR THE NJ QSO PARTY

Bored one night, I was cruising the 40 meter phone band when I happened upon a few old timers talking about "the days when State QSO parties were really good."

"Yeah, I remember when the whole state would get on the air, even in the little states....it was wall to wall activity...people back then were friendlier and wanted to to get on the air for their own state's QSO party.  But heck, today, other than the really big ones like Pennsylvania and Texas, you can hardly find anyone calling the contest."

"Yeah, its a shame," his friend lamented.  "Here in my state, its the same thing....the local QSO party gets little activity.  Folks are just too busy I guess, they got no pride in their state anymore...everything has gone big scale...all they want now is the big contests sponsored by the big magazines and the ARRL."

Since I love state QSO parties this conversation was interesting.  I compete in the Pennsylvania QSO Party's
Mobile Class, having placed 3rd last year.  It was my debut doing an in-motion mobile contest effort, and I am
hooked.  Next month, I will participate as a mobilier in
both the Ohio and New Jersey QSO Parties.

But I had to agree with the old timers on 40 meters: The
smaller and mid-sized state QSO parties often offer scant activity, a fact becoming apparent when I tried
a mobile effort in a neighboring state.  I called the contest repeatedly on CW and phone.  

The result? Not one single QSO!  I could hardly believe it!

As I prepared for the New Jersey QSO Party, set for August 17th and 18th, 2002 I wondered if the same thing would happen.

None of this is a critisism of the sponsors, New Jersey's Englewood Amateur Radio Association.  For years they did all they could to "bring out the NJ troops" for their QSO party and a fair amount of activity obtained.  New Jersey has a good QSO party but I wanted to help make it a GREAT QSO party.

I resolved to get in touch with the NJQP Chairman, Dave, W2CC, to see what we could do together to really get
New Jersey on the air for their own QSO party.  If we were successful operators in other states would follow suit and get in on the fun.  I would benefit by being lucky enough to have two super-active contests featuring a mobile class right in my backyard: the PA QSO Party    and the newly rejuvenated NJ QSO Party.

Dave was of the opinion that in the last 20 years or so, as the high profile domestic contests have dominated
the contest landscape, state QSO parties all over the country have suffered a lack of activity with the exception of the really big states like PA and TX.  There
seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm for the smaller and
mid-sized states' QSO parties once they were over-
shadowed by the big domestic contests.

But NJ is no small state, I reasoned.  Its ranked 13th in the country in the number of Hams within its borders with around 17 thousand licensees.  If even a small percentage of them were all on the air at the same time,
activity levels would be high, very high.  And in the Age
of the Internet, promoting it should be easier than ever since most Hams have Internet access.

The New Jersey QSO Party was just eight weeks away when I involved myself in helping to promote it.  The word had to get out fast while being presented in a way
describing the fun and excitement of representing
your state and home county on the air during a QSO
party.  I had to make it sound enjoyable, and it is!

So I took to the Internet.

The first step was to create an official website for the NJQP.  Never mind that I knew nothing of HTML, the
computer language used to write websites.  I learned
it well enough in one weekend to write a simple yet attractive website.

Here is a hyperlink to the NJ QSO Party Website (just click on the colored letters):

THE OFFICAL NJ QSO PARTY WEBPAGE.

I have also done an extensive E mail campaign extending prospective NJQP operators a personal
"invitation" to get on the air for NJQP targetted primarily on NJ Hams after discovering an online way to search for callsigns geographically.  Their E mail addresses are then added to the NJQP list.  

This required a "Bulk Mail Exception" from AOL allowing me to send to a large list of addresses at the same time.  If you plan to promote your contest or similar
Ham Radio event this way, check your Internet Service
Provider's Terms of Service first as many have a prohibition against sending bulk E mail unless you
demonstrate that yours is a non-profit effort.  On AOL, it can be done by phone but you must satisfy their security clearances when making changes to your account.

The E mail campaign coupled with the NJQP Website are just beginning to generate activity with the Website getting a fair number of hits daily.  We plan to continue this effort for future NJQPs and hope it results in a very active and enjoyable contest.  

This article is written primarily as a challenge to NJ Hams and all others interested in state QSO parties.
Help us turn the NJ QSO Party into a great contest by
visiting the NJQP Website and pledging to get on the
air!  

We need as many NJ stations on the air as possible
to ensure coverage of all NJ Counties which count as
contest multipliers.  Out-of-State stations provide
multipliers for the NJ Stations and really add to the
excitement.  

It takes both to make for a fun and enjoyable operating event and particularly demonstrates New Jersey's emergency preparedness capacity.  If I am successful
in getting 5 to 10 stations from each NJ County on the air at the same time, activity levels will have reached an all time high and a GREAT time will be had by all.

"You can take the boy off the beach, but not the beach out of the boy" goes an old Jersey Shore saying and that is part of my motivation in promoting NJQP.  I am originally from the sandy shores of Cape May County, NJ.
While I now live in Philadelphia, I guess I will always be a Jersey Boy and I want my home state's QSO party to
be one of the best.

So please stop by for a QSO or two or more during
NJQP on August 17th and 18th.  "Your table at the party is waiting!"

(I won't retrofit the words to "Life is Cabaret Old Chum" to fit a Ham Radio theme but you get the picture.....HI).

73 and hope to QSO you from the Garden State,

Tim
N8LXR

 

I don't even have a state QSO party to play in anymore! This year it was replaced by the New England QSO Party, which I participated in. It was good fun...bands could have been better though.

 

haven't heard of one in ga. seems like people here are SCARED to key the mike and talk. got several repeaters that,are seldom used. even though you were refering to hf.
maybe "mike fright?" who knows? do have one 6 meters qso party,on monday night, but don't have 6meter equipment just yet, well have a tt 6n2 but then one needs antenna for it to do any good, in the making now. or should i say "on the way"

 

k7jhb,
thanks for the info, i really didn't know that ga had a qso party.
wouldnt have done me much good to have had my radio up, as the other end was down, for some light maintance, ( fire ants ate the jacket off the coax for about 1 1/2 inches)and didnt get it back up so. guess that is the way the cookie crumbles..:0
thanks again;
73

 

I jumped into the Virginia QSO Party in March, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I hope those of you who are interested in QSO parties will participate in the 2002 Collegiate QSO Party scheduled for 1200 Sept. 21 to 0400 Sept. 22 (8 a.m. to midnight U.S. EDST on Sept. 21).  This is a new event sponsored by Collegiate Amateur Radio Assn. to promote activity among college Amateur Radio stations and the ham radio community.  CQP is not intended to be a contest, although you can submit logs and scores to CARA and have your call sign posted on the CARA web site as a CQP participant.

For those of you who like to earn scores, extra points are available for working collegiate stations and a special CARA station during the QSO Party. Non-college stations are welcome and encouraged to participate in the event.  The CQP rules are posted on the CARA web site at Collegiate Amateur Radio Association.

73,
Brad N3BF
n3bf@arrl.net

 

As a native New Jerseyan (Jerseyite?) I hope it will be a big success. Wish I could be there for it. I'll certainly be "active" from this end.

Good luck and good propagation!

73,

Bob HB9ASQ/WA2UPQ

 

I see he suggested caling freqs are outside of Tech privledges. Too bad, would have liked to participate.

Maybe next year all classes will be invited.

 

I was pretty busy this weekend, but got on the air between 5-6 p.m. on Saturday and 6-7 p.m. on Sunday. Activity was VERY light and I never heard any mobile stations. I made 5 QSOS total, a couple on 40 CW and a few on 40 SSB. I was hoping to work my last two counties (Warren and Cumberland) but of course no luck there.

Where was everyone?

73 - Jim AD1C

 

Hi Jim  (AD1C)

This is Tim, N8LXR, author of the NJQP Website.

Yes you are right, NJ stations did not come out in any great number, depsite the new NJQP Website and that we sent out over 1000 E Mail "invitations" to "join the party."

I was one of the operators at WK2G, a multi-operator,
single transmitter effort from Camden County.  Thanks so much for the contact!

It was a lot easier for us of course, since we were in NJ
and could QSO with anyone.  Even still, we had to
"sell" NJQP by CQing like this:  "CQ NJQP, any station, anywhere, stateside or DX, you do not have to be in the contest, we will walk you through the exchange, all other contest exchanges accomodated, call WK2G."  (&#33

Despite the low level of active participation, we had a lot of fun, but I understand the frustrations of an out-of-state station trying to rack up points.  I wish I could have done more to promote NJQP, but I only got involved
about 8 weeks before the contest and hope to help
out the sponsors by doing more promotional efforts over the coming year in preparation for NJQP 2003.

Thanks again for being there!

Many thanks to Merrill, WK2G, for the use of his station and  boundless enthusiasm for contesting.  Merril has a FB station complete with a large triband yagi and 3 band sloper and put many hours in behind the mic and on CW.

Lets try to improve the turnout by encouraging our on-air
friends to join us as we try to bring about an era of renaissance for these smaller state QSO parties.

73 and thanks again for "being there,"

Tim
N8LXR