Congratulations to the 7QP organizers! From here in W1, it appeared that the activity from all across the 7th call area was fantastic. Probably the best debut of a new QSO party I can think of! The downside (for me) was that the 7-land guys were so active that they kind of took over the band from the New England QSO Party! :) But, it was nice to call CQ and have so many answers from WY, MT, and ID! Congratulations again. I think the first weekend of May is now overloaded with contests (7QP, INQP, NEQP, CH, and ARI). Randy, K5ZD
This one is a keeper - see you next year. Eldon, W1END
Thanks for this fun event. Looking forward to next year. Riki, K7NJ
I enjoyed participating in this QSO Party and hearing so many seven call area stations on the bands. See you next year. Tom, K3TW
Fun was had by all. We were a bit short of operators including our top CW team. We will be back next year. Scott, K7ZO (NK7U)
The Oregon QSO Party has always been an event here at Smoke Ranch and the last few years operating a multi effort. This year we decided a week before, to operate multi in the inaugural 7QP. So, waiting until the last minute, well actually the day before, we came up with a plan to operate three stations. We have the station at the house with two operating positions and two towers, but we needed a third. A couple of the fellows brought up radios and amps the day before, and we put up a 50' tower at the other end of the six acres here, stuck a homemade 20m Moxon on it, put up a 40m inverted V in a 70' tree, and there we were (very late Friday night). Jim's camper at that end of the property with a 250' extension cord, and we had a station that could operate CW, while we did SSB at the house! There was a bit of RF hash on 20m for the CW station, and a few frequencies we couldn't operate on phone, but it worked well. There was no problem on 40m, we just operated high in the band on SSB. Everybody here got into it and worked hard, what a group of great guys: - KR7X warming the Io early on 20m SSB - N7OU the main CW man from start to end - KI7Y with a key in one hand and a mic in the other - K7GK doing it all with rate on CW and SSB - W7ZB absolutely Mr. Rate on 20m and 40m SSB - K7AR SSB and watching the Saturday soaps with my wife - K7ZSD me, dragging a hurt foot around wearing a cooking apron We had a blast, the rate was good, the activity was excellent, and top notch operators across the country, what a pleasure to work so many. A real tip of the hat to the fellows who organized the 7QP, the CODXC, and especially Dick, K4XU, who got the ball rolling on this last year and really showed how the Left coast can party! See you next year. Brad, K7ZSD
7QP was great fun. Congratulations on getting off to such a fine start. Ira K2RD, Paolo I2UIY and Rusty W6OAT (K7SB)
Wish I had more time to play in this one. Looks like a great start for the contest. Logging SW improvements are needed, but TR worked well for me. Exception: couldn't enter multiple counties on one line. Ken, N6RO
A decent amount of activity. Sure made all those 7-land states easy to work. Dennis, NB1B
What a great start for a contest! Lots of actvity and good mobile action from rare counties. My primary effort for the weekend was the MARAC CW test, so I didn't work much phone, but I ran off about 40 quick Q's on phone at 15Z. Thanks for the Q's and the rare counties worked 95 total. Congratulations on organizing all the activity, more 7's on than in SS! Jeffrey, N8II
I sure enjoyed the first 7QP! I look forward to doing it again next year. Thanks for a great operating activity! Gary, K7EK (W7JD)
Can you imagine what this will be like with a few sunspots and some decent 15 and 10 meter propagation ? Wow ! Can't wait. Bob, NA2X
Thanks for a great QSO party! Was only on for a couple of hours, and once again, failed to hear that elusive Idaho station! Colin, AE3A
There was good activity from 7-land. Calling CQ on Phone was surprisingly productive! Risto checked 160m, but never heard any 7-land signals there. I woke up really early Saturday morning and arrived at the shack at 5am to install the new version of Writelog that supports 7QP. Unfortunately, when I tried to install Writelog, I got a Windows error message stating that a DLL could not be run and to consult my administrator, at which point the installation halted. AGGGGGGGHHHH!!!! Fighting Microsoft way too early on a weekend is NOT what I wanted! I noticed this same problem was previously raised on the Writelog reflector, but there was no solution posted. After some digging on Google, I found that upgrading the Windows Microsoft Installer may help. Then it took about 15 minutes to navigate through broken links on the Microsoft downloads web site, and finally managed to hack my way through it to download the upgrade. Installed it, then attempted Writelog install, and it went through successfully! Because of all this, we ended up starting the contest 35 minutes late. We made 100 QSOs with OR, and 98 with WA. Mike had fun running stations from his home state of OR on 40m Phone. I was really surprised by all the activity in WY and MT (56 Qs in MT, 41 in WY). 7QP was fun and we look forward to next year's running! Dean, N6DE (W6YX)
We had a great time hamming, hiking, and bird watching with the Crazy Mountains as our backdrop. Thanks for the excuse to have some fun! N7MSU, K7PX, K7VK
Nice to be aprt of event...poor condx and part time operation. Marco, I4IKW
Lots of fun - I'll be back next year! Jack, KF6T
For the 7th Area QSO Party I was on-the-air from about 1500Z through about 2300Z on Saturday May 6th 2006 and was operating from my vehicle with a long wire antenna about 150 feet long. I was exactly on the (Yavapai/Maricopa) county line, off on the side of the road just North of Wickenberg, AZ a few miles, right where the county signs show the line to be. .. Thanks for all your time, effort and resources to put together a great fun time for all! Scotty, W7SW/W7Q/W1ESE
I ran three qso parties that weekend...lots of fun switching back and forth. IC 756 Pro III to Alpha 87A, MonstIR at 90 feet and 80m dipole at 88 feet. Craig, K9CT
This was a great time...what a fantastic start! John, K7WP
The logging problems were the least of our problems (AA7VW and myself). We were setup on a mountainside at the east edge of Tillamook county. When we got there Friday about noon, the wind was blowing about 40 to 50 mph (that's not exaggerating). In the late afternoon, the clouds started coming over the coast range and the temperature was dropping quickly. It wasn't all that cold by the thermometer (about 48) but the wind chill put it closer to freezing. I was trying to work ZL's on PSK and RTTY and I could barely type because my fingers were just about useless, five minutes on the keyboard was all I could take. The ironic part was that we were only 42 miles from home (as the crow flys) and my XYL is telling me it's so hot in the Willamette Valley, she couldn't even go out and mow the lawn. Saturday morning we wake up to rain and a light breeze, but at least the wind died down to the point where we could have a fire. I'm still not sure about the propagation, seems like I was fighting QSB most of the time. Looking forward to Field Day.... Richard, W7YES
Great contest..thanks to all outside of 7-LAND who took the time to get on.. Mike, NI7T
The contest was fun but I didn't have much time for operating. Thanks for creating the contest and I am looking forward to next year and with a greater effort... Dave, W7DPW
Retiring to AZ in a few years - will be able to put in serious effort then. Great beginning! Ed, K8RD/m6
Thank you for an excellent contest. See you next year! W7YQ
Fun contest, fun trip. CU in the CQP 7-8 Oct 2006, and again next year in the 7QP. Fred, K6DGW and Rich, NU6T
Thanks to CODXC and all supporting clubs for a terrific 1st ever 7QP! I had a lot of fun and am looking forwad to next year. Having operated in several California QSO parties both from inside California and outside, I can say this event measured up very well, especially considering it was the first. Dennis, AF7Y
I was only going to look for new CW counties, but got caught up in the activity. My congratulations to the organizers. This was a super activity. Many thanks to all CW particpants - especially the mobiles! Bob, W4VQ
Good job, nice contest. Mike, W9RE
It would help if the mobile stations would either sign/county code or /M so that we know to look for them again and not assume they will be dupes!! Clive, GM3POI
Outstanding job on getting the new contest running! Lots of activity. Kudos to organizers! Paul, WB2ABD
You folks did a good job putting togather the 7QP. A big pat on the back for W7 land. See ya next year Lord willing. John, WE9N
I think many stations were surprised at the activity the 7QP generated. I heard many say good things about the party and I know it was a lot of work to prepare, organize, and initiate but I feel you have done a great job. Our small local club, the Northern Arizona DX Association, started the "RT 66 on The Air" event and it has become an annual event. I hope the 7QP also becomes a annual event. My hat is off to you and your club!! Keep up the good work! Bob, NF7E
Fun contest and look forward to next year. David, NC6P
Did not hear about event until the day before so I really wasn't prepared so I just threw this together. Don't have much of an antenna, 80M dipole at 14 feet, due to restrictions but I gave it a shot anyway. Ran 100 watts, fone only. Ray, W7YKN
It was great fun, just wish band conditions had been better! Ed, VE4EAR
The K7ED/m superstation (mobile edition) was on the first Edmonds -Kingston, WA ferry of the day at 5:50am and once on the far side of Puget Sound I found a high spot in Kingston at about 6:20am. With the 40 meter hamstick on the car, I managed about 20 QSOs in half an hour. Feeling like I had done my duty in activating Kitsap County, I bundled up the antenna and headed off to my next stop. Along the way I passed a deer munching her breakfast. At the Clallam/Jefferson county line just east of Sequim I decided to switch over to 20 meters and see how that band might be. For some reason I've never had much luck at the Clallam/Jefferson county line on US101. In past Salmon Runs (the Washington QSO Party in September - WWDXC). I've stopped there a couple times and always got the feeling I just wasn't very loud on the bands. It could be that the early hour means that 20 meters just isn't really open yet. Or it could be some sort of radio black hole. Whatever it is, I had the same feeling on Saturday. 17 QSOs in 45 minutes was enough. I headed to my next stop. I headed back south on US101 and stopped for breakfast in a roadside cafe. After a couple hours of travel I found the Mason/Grays Harbor county line just north of McCleary. I put up the 20 meter hamstick and started out on phone. After an excruciating 4 QSOs, I went back to my preferred cw. The band was much more open than at my previous stop (for whatever reason) and I managed almost 50 QSOs in an hour of calling CQ (including GM3POI). Remember - each county line QSO is really two QSOs - one from each county - so this added about 100 contacts to the contest log. It being just after noon, I was ready for lunch. This was one of the main goals for the day's trip. A barbecue joint just east of McCleary(and just west of Olympia) had been featured on the Food TV Network and I stopped there (Ranch House BBQ) for lunch. It was no disappointment. The pork sandwich was delicious. The cup of chili fantastic. The side orders of cole slaw and potato salad acceptable. And the desert of pecan pie was (while not as good as mine) very tasty. It was an excellent stop and will definitely be on the route in upcoming Salmon Run and 7QP expeditions. I headed south to my next destination and along the way a bald eagle floated across my path - a good sign I assumed. At the Pacific/Lewis county line just west of the oddly named Pe Ell, I pulled over to the side of the road on the forested hillside. This time I spent all of my time on 20 meters cw. A good stop and I put 40 QSOs into the log in the next hour. Included were GM3POI (again) and I4IKW (both answered my CQ). The little hamstick really did seem to work. That was enough for me. I decided not to head further south to the Wahkiakum/Cowlitz county line. I had an email from N7EIE/m last week and he was confident of reaching Wahkiakum county. So I headed back to I5 and turned the Celica north. A stop at a rest stop in Thurston county put 28 QSOs in the log. Another in Tacoma added 8 Pierce County contacts. And a final stop on a side street northeast of my home QTH (where the road actually has a line across it where the King County road surface ends and the Snohomish County blacktop starts...) added another 9 QSOs (enough to "activate" these rare counties). I headed back home and arrived at around 6:30pm. While there was another 5.5 hours remaining in the contest - I had accomplished my goal of activating counties and was done. In the end, the K7ED/m effort totaled almost 300 contacts (counting the county line QSOs as two) and I activated 11 counties (the real goal of the trip). The trip included 350 miles and (more importantly nowadays - about 3/4 tank of gas). It was another great experience. See you all in the Salmon Run in September! Jack, WA0RJY (K7ED/m)
I just wanted to congratulate you on a successful start to the 7QP. Activity was tremendous at the start of the event... I was working the MARAC event which fit in well with yours except the county abbreviations are different; it would be nice if all test organizers could agree on the same county codes. I worked K7RAT/M, W7SE/M, W7D/M, and K7BG/M quite a few times in some very rare spots. The activity level was greater than SS early in the event! I'd say I worked over 100 CW Q's mainly on 20 (15 refused to open). I made a brief foray onto 20 phone for about 30 minutes and probably worked nearly 60 Q's, but I stuck with orginial goal of county hunting on CW. Next year I'll give 7QP my full attention! Jeff, N8II
Enjoyed the QSO party. Will be looking forward to next year. Bill, VE5BF
Good fun hunting the 7-Lands with the not too hot condx. NN7ZZ was the biggest sig - CU next year. Derrick, G3LHJ
Good to hear all the activity. Karl, N8NA
It was wild explaining the special event callsign just for the QSO Party to many stations. Conditions on 15m and 10m were totally dead. Had lots of good runs and just a little search and pounce. All the activity was great and look forward to the next one. Richard (N7NT) and John (WA7NWL), N7G
Was great fun to work the many 7 calls! Hope for better condx next year! Gerhard, DL5AWI
I never had an opening on 15 or 10, although I did listen there. Plenty of activity, great mobile participation, you really got the folks out. Congrats on an excellent job! Thanks to all the 7-land players! Julius, N2WN
Not much time to operate, but it was fun. Hope to put more time in next year. Bob, WA5SOG
Had a blast this year - Keep up the good work! Gordon, K4OD
What a great contest. Congratulations to everyone. Jerry, K7LY
I understand that this is the first year for this contest, if so it's off to a great start. Had a great time and hope next year to even improve on my operations. Looking forward to the scores to see how many folks joined in. Mark, AD5WI
I thank you for the nice event.. Looking forward to next years.. Ed, NT4TT
It was a good feeling to be mobile in the first running of a big contest. Unfortunately, I got the feeling I just wasn't putting out a good signal. I'll try raising up my Hustler mobile whips a little next year. Leroy, N7EIE
I spent a lot of time preparing for this one. As I have done many portable, DXPeditions, and mobile type contests in the past, I had thought that my experiences and careful planning was second nature. I had a rude awakening come the start of the event. I had mounted two each three-padded magnetic mounts to the roof of the wife's Crown Victoria. My plan was to be able to switch to one of two bands instantly. With my wife Joanna (KD7GLY) driving, and our small Cairn terrier Rosie standing guard on the middle arm rest, we entered our first planned 7-land county. Immediately, the notebook PC refused to stay on, it insisted on re-booting after a minute or so of running. Removing the battery and powering the PC directly off of the DC power from the car finally fixed the problem. After having made just two QSO's the antenna magmount decided to tear itself off of the car roof, and of course it took the second magnetic mount with it. After we stopped, we found two nice dings on the roof. The mounts, with the antennas, still appeared OK. After inspection of the mounts, I determined that the pads used to protect the surface of the car from the magnets had just enough thickness to lessen the magnetic force of the mounts. I removed the pads, and decided to use some small cotton rope that I had brought just in case something like this happened. However none of the tools that I brought would cut the rope. Fortunately we were in small town, so I was able to pick up a small souvenir pocket knife, cut the rope and properly guy the two antennas. My wife gassed the car as I did my handiwork. We got in the car, started down the road and began making contacts (finally!). After about the fifth QSO, the radio began turning itself off randomly when transmitting. I had thoroughly RFI-proofed the setup before using ferrite cores, and doubted that RFI was the problem. I began wiggling cables, and found a commercially made coax jumper had become intermittent. I had brought no spare with me. By using some tywraps ( I ALWAYS bring plenty!), I was able to secure the cable in such a way as to cause good contact. We began making many good QSO's and began to finally relax. Suddenly the PC would no longer key the rig! I tried reconfiguring the menu, wiggling and testing for bad cables, but everything seemed FB. I began to suspect my HB interface. I had not brought a spare, even though I have built and stored many over the years. I didn't bring an external method to send CW, so we would have to turn around, return home, and start over. My wife suggested that I reboot the PC. Just to satisfy her, I did, and the system was back sending CW once again from the PC. Everything began playing as it was supposed to. My nerves began, once again, to settle down. A few hours went by and I was really having a ball, all of the failures seemed behind us, the WX was wonderful, band conditions were good, I even got called by and worked several DXCC countries, quite an achievement from a mobile in the western US! Life was good. We were about to cross a county line, and I still had quite a little pileup going, so Joanna decided to stop the car, and take Rosie for a little walk. They returned just as the pile up got whittled down to one or two stations, perfect timing, I though. The dog jumped into the car, and assumed her usual position between the driver and myself. A vile stench immediately filled the car, my dog had found some cow manure in which to roll, as terriers sometimes do. Apparently they do this as a ploy to disguise their scent, so that other dogs cannot smell them. Well, that might work for dogs, but we DEFINITELY could tell, with no trouble whatsoever, that the dog was with us, and we knew exactly her location! Our QTH was in a very remote area, hours away from the next town, so we did out best to use our drinking water to clean off the dog. Folks, I can tell you that it takes more than water to clean off that stuff, even a little. Liquids like Coke, lemonade etc. aren't remedies either. We drove with all windows down, our coats on, and tried not to think about the dog's newly acquired aroma. Eventually we encountered a little store where we were able to buy a few items to get the dog back into a more sociably acceptable form. We had originally planned to do 13 counties, but had to whittle our total down to 10 after having had all of those ill-timed visits from Murphy. We were gone about 16 hours, and did about 670 miles, give or take. We slept very well that night. Brian, K7RE (mobiled in Montana)
Thanks for the fun and a few new counties! Axel, DL6KVA
GREAT contest! Had a super time looking for 7s, and there were lots around. Even managed a few 160M Qs, which doesn't often happen in QSO parties from here. Bud, VA7ST
I can hear well only NN7ZZ. All other signals were too low, at QRN level. Ramon, EA3EJI
Had fun tho it was a sad time for me due to my mother passing away Wednesday and the service on saturday..thanks to all the 7th call area for a fun contest. Bill, K0UK
Some competition on the contest part of the band. I had the ARI contest, Indiana QSP Party, New England QSO Party and the County Hunters all fighting for the same frequency portion and the Italian contest was on ALL modes so the 40M band was infested with zillions of RTTY stations right where the QSO Party was supposed to be. I had the result from last year's New England QSO Party to defend so I concentrated on the east coast. Nice, however, to work a couple of new counties and, presumably, I will have top result from the Azores. Gary, CU2JT
Great contest! Too bad 10 and 15 never opened. Had a few surprise QSOs on 160. See you next year. Rick, WB8JUI
There seemed to be good activity and propagation, but I worked only two on 15m. Considering the type of test it is, I nearly always ran, not my forte, and almost doubled the QSOs over last year's ORQP. I had a good time; got to say hello to old friends back east; see I worked 45 states; and look forward to 7QP next year. Jim, W3CP/7
Thank you for a nice event. Had only little time, as I flew back that day from W6 (across W7). Hope to have more time next year. Uli, KK8I
I wanted to enter as SOLP 20 meters single band. Due to plans on Saturday night I was not able to get on the lower bands. I did make one contact with K7QQ on 40 mtrs Saturday morning. That was my only contact outside of 20 mtrs. I kept it in my log so K7QQ would get his points/mult for the contact. Log cross checking will be a nightmare. I called, and was called by, other people in the INDIANA and NE QSO parties, I called a couple of special events stations, and 14 stations that were in the ARI (Italian) Contest. I called and called CQ 7QP without good results. I thought there would be a lot of county hunters or others just needing a NV or other 7th district QSL's but didn't get good results. I switched from calling CQ to S&P off and on. Alan, K7ACZ
Excellent contest! Nice complement to CQP. Only able to get on for about three hours in the evening. Plenty of CW. Called CQ - resulted in lots of contacts. Best part was working N7LE/op N6GC! Kevin, N6RCE
Nice to work a little bit in the first 7th Area QSO party. I only had a few hours to work, but it was fun to tune the CW bands and find a number of stations calling 7QP-CQ! Eric, W0TT
Six hours, and a whole lotta fun. Thanks to all that make it possible. C U next year! Dale, WC7S
K1 (5 watts) G5RV, courteous operators, good condx, great fun! David, W0PQ
This was a really fun contest/QSO party. The best one to date! Greg, WD9FTZ
I hope to be able to more fully participate next year. I thank you and your organization along with all who worked to organize and those who participated in the 7QP. Although only able to operate for approx. 1 hour Saturday night, this constitutes my first opportunity to operate on HF other than one contact in February and my first taste of contesting. Ron, KE7DLG
Good activity for a first time event. See you all next year. Dan, W4NTI
The first 7QP was great! I enjoyed putting eight semi-rare (WA) counties on, although I ended up doing twice as much driving as operating. And for the first time ever I did not work another WA station! CU next year! Jim, K7WA
Wish I could have spent more time as it was fun. Rod, WC7N
Wonderful QSO Party. Terrific activity on CW ! Thanks for your efforts. Next year I'll operate more than a few hours. Bob, AA7FK
Fun contest to operate in conjunction with the New England QSO Party. Thanks to the organizers. Norman, W1BYH
It was great to be able to use SD for this contest. Mike, N7VZU
This contest looks like a winner, can't wait for next year!! Mark, KN7T
This was a first time experience doing a major contest as a portable operation. My wife and I left early Sat morning for Orcas Island in the San Juan islands. Our operating site was located at the top of Mt. Constitution elev 2409 feet. We arrived around 11AM and set up the station and by 11:37 we were on the air. She logged as I called out the callsigns and exchanges. Now, my wife is not familiar with phonetics so I carefully repeated each call and exchange so she'd get it right. I am very proud of her and grateful that she accompanied me. Conditions were fair at the mountain summit and not as bad as we had expected. Temperature never got above 50F and it didn't rain as expected. The "shack" was in the back seat of our Saturn Vue SUV and she sat in the driver's seat dutifully carrying out her job. I had planned on operating phone also but forgot to bring a mic so I figure we missed at least 25 more contacts. Nevertheless 127 contacts was a nice figure for the limited time we had. She was getting tired around 6:30PM so we broke down the station and headed back to the ferry dock. Got home around 10:30PM and we immediately crashed. It was a nice outing for us and we enjoyed the experience. Paul, NG7Z
Thanks for creating a super format. The two of us had a ball from the Ochoco Divide. Tom, K7ZZ
Great fun and great participation! Mike, W0MU
Good contest. Wish I could have spent more time with it. Rick, W7LKG
Didn't have much time to play but I'll be back next year! Jeff, K4BP
Great contest. Wish I had had more time. Conditions were pretty good and it was nice to work a bunch of 7s. Heard quite a few 80M signals but could only manage one QSO there. Was sorry there wasn't a Sunday segment. Paul, KD2MX
It was a lot of fun. Even with poor conditions there was an amazing number of stations. I can't wait until the next one. Steve, W7QC
We all had a lot of fun and it was an opportunity to use the K7UGA callsign again and get some of the CADXA members involved that hardly ever contest. In fact the K7UGA 7QP operation may have generated some new contesters. Thats all good! CADXA) is mostly a 120+ member DX Club with a small but enthusiastic core of contesters numbering less than 20. Always good to get more contesters going. Of the 11 of us that operated with K7UGA, five have very little (or none) contest experience. I ran around the week before 7QP doing "house calls", getting the new guys familiar with contest programs etc. That was a blast. One of the new contesters ends up getting 800+ q's on 20m ssb with a 756Pro and a TH6 at 55'. Who woulda thunk? ;-) Am doing the log merge now and still waiting for logs from 2 bands so it will be a couple of more days before we have a 3830 report. We had a great time. Bob, K8IA
From the Northwest corner of Arizona, AZMHV, the contest was a success. It can only get bigger-n-better in the years to come. Having multiple QSO parties on the same weekend worked out very well for everyone, except the log checkers. I suspect there are going to be many Uniques. MAL, N7MAL
What a blast was 7QP. I operated mobile through western WY, CW only. Things went well until the radio went dead. From what I have heard so far, Wyoming had a pretty good turn out for this party. For subsequent 7QPs I would personally prefer a two-day event. I ended up driving a full day before the party just to get to the area I wanted to cover. A loop from home one day and back the next with party operation both days would be more productive for me. Walt, W7SE
Well I thought the event was wonderful and the activity level very high. We operated from NI7T in Price, Utah. Had over 1450 Qs with 60 mults. Missed VO, VE1 and another province. Score is about 200,000. Still wrestling with some logging software issues--like everyone else. We had at least 14 operations from Utah that I know of so far. My last count showed 21 of the 27 counties represented. So, all in all, I'm really pleased with the first running and proud of the Utah stations that got in the fray. Thanks for all the Qs. Thanks to all those who worked so hard to make first one this happen in a very credible manner! Darryl, K7UT | 