The 2024 VA QSO Party (VAQP) is over and I would say it was a great success. But there is always room for improvement, and VAQP is no exception. Here are some of my thoughts and some suggestions.

VAQP Activity and Contest Notes

There was a great deal of activity on day one – Saturday, and the Bands seemed to be very good for contacts within and outside of VA. The Spotting network was busy with Spots for Mobiles and some of the more “rare” Counties. I was operating from a Fixed, CW+SSB station in Lancaster County (LAN) again this year. Thanks to KX4O for the Spotting network, which has become a critical tool for maximizing score in VAQP.

There seemed to be even more out-of-state and DX activity than last year. I contacted a good number of States (40) and was able to Log a fair number of DX stations as well. OM2VL was very active, as in past years. I worked him several times and he even got me to switch Bands for a couple QSOs. His signal was incredibly strong in LAN. What surprised me was that there was a fairly large number of VA Counties/Cities that I never heard or saw on the Spots list. It seemed like there were more of these missing Counties this year.

I worked the Contest until the Saturday finish bell at midnight, finishing the day with around 600 QSOs. I was hoping to top 1,000 QSOs for the second time (first time was in 2023), so this seemed like a good start. It is always hard for me to get going at 8 AM on Sunday morning, but I managed to get rolling again by about 9. Sunday was pretty good, but not as good as Saturday. Of course the 2nd day is always more of a battle after already logging many stations on Day 1. I ended the Contest with just over 900 QSOs. Not bad, but not a personal best either. Still, I easily broke 200K points, where I would have been happy with 100K points just 2 or 3 years ago. So the trend isn’t bad.

I only had one or two notable operating issues in VAQP this year. One was a large number of DUPES, with some stations wanting to waste time arguing about the fact of our QSO being a Dupe. I try to always just work anything I think is a Dupe and move on. Most operators in and out of the Contest were courteous as is usually the case. I did have one Frequency-policeman move down almost 3 kHz to tell me I was interfering with a “Net.” I guess that group must be using AM Filters, as that would mean they are protecting 6 kHz of Bandwidth for a SSB Net. That seems to be a little greedy to me. My 200-250 watts was not likely causing them any real trouble. To top it off, his signal was not even that strong.

How the Station Performed

I needed a last minute feedline repair to the Vertical antenna on my pier, that was completed just a couple hours before starting time. I usually try to check the antennas on my LAN Antenna Farmette (on less than an acre) in the week or two before VAQP. I discovered that the 80-100 feet of coax was really in bad shape, with signs of water damage to the ground braid on both ends. So this was cut and new connectors installed. The antennas available included:

6BTV vertical, 80 meter broadband dipole, ZS6BKW, 160 meter inverted L

The Ham equipment in the Shack included IC-7600 and FTDX-3000 radios, Elecraft KPA-500 amp for the 7600, and an Elecraft KAT-500 antenna tuner for the Amp. Software was N1MM+ and the station was controlled with my trusty old DX Doubler with the DXDUSB USB interface. It all worked pretty well. I use the vertical on one radio and one of the wire antennas on the other radio. This is necessary to minimize RFI/interacttion because the wire antennas are nearly in parallel. I had little trouble working any stations I could hear and RUNNING went fairly well on both CW and Phone. Of course being Spotted was a huge help when RUNNING.

Summary

The 2024 Va QSO Party was very enjoyable. Band conditions seemed to be good and there was plenty of out-of-State and DX activity. Most of the VA Counties and Cities were represented, but it did seem like a few may have been missing.

After several years of Mobile and Expedition entries, I continued my recent run of Home-Fixed operation. With multiple antennas available, and High power available, it certainly enhances the fun. It was not my best performance but I am happy with the overall score, and my Station worked fairly well.

Some Areas for Improvement

The VA QSO Party has become one of the most popular State QSO parties and I salute the Sterling Park ARC for their efforts to get it to this point. There are some areas that could be improved. One is the complete confusion about the Mobile/Rover/Expedition entry classes. The rules make my head spin. And there is a great deal of confusion on what to Log when working some of these stations. The other thing I have never liked in VAQP is the Multiplier for every DX Entity worked. Don’t get me wrong, I love working DX Stations in VAQP, but this level of DX promotion seems silly to me. This opens up the contest to working anything DX, including those in the Russian DX Contest, that have no idea they are Logging a VAQP QSO. I think that we should discourage QSOs with Stations that are not actively/knowingly participating in VAQP. The final area for improvement is Digital QSOs. There has been much confusion with some of the newer Digital Modes such as FT8. As currently implemented, there is no way to send and receive an actual Serial number. Until this gets resolved, these Contacts should not be permitted in a VAQP Log.