Sunday’s Operating Location at the Chase/Marion/Morris County Intersection
For this year’s Kansas QSO Party, I participated again as a 1×1 station, K0B, traveling around central Kansas. Unlike previous years, I decided to make only two stops and enter under the new “Expedition” category. This meant visiting one location on Saturday and a different one on Sunday, with the requirement to use commercial power for at least one of those operations. In previous years, I typically competed as a rover, but that has been frustrating for a couple of reasons: First, I am a one-man show, and setting up and tearing down at multiple stops in the hot Kansas summer is exhausting; second, the rover category is very competitive, with some entries having multiple operators and a focus on CW (which is worth more points).
I learned last year that county lines or corners are really key to this event since you get to multiply those contacts by the number of counties, so that was a primary focus this year. As I needed to use commercial power as well, I decided to reserve a shelter at Milford State Park in Geary County, which had electricity (and restrooms), and use that for my Saturday stop. This location also had the benefit of being a POTA (Parks on the Air) park, US-2345, which means I could use that spotting network as well and drive more activity my way. I’ve done this several times, and it has been a huge help to my score with all the POTA hunters out there. Sunday then became my three-county corner operation down a minimum maintenance dirt road dead-ending where Chase, Morris, and Marion counties meet.
I drove out from Kansas City to Milford State Park (just outside Junction City, KS) with the intent of being on the air at the QSO party start at 9 a.m.; however, this was delayed after arriving at the park and finding out the shelter I reserved with power did not have power. Apparently, it was recently rebuilt due to flooding, and while the website said it had power, they hadn’t finished the installation. A bit of panic ensued, as not only did this cost me ~$40 to reserve, but without commercial power, I couldn’t enter the Expedition category. Luckily, there was one shelter (the biggest one with the best view, incidentally) that was not reserved for the day, but it cost nearly double. I spoke with the ranger in charge, and he graciously converted my reservation at no extra charge, so I was back in business.
Saturday’s Operating Location at Milford State Park in Geary County
I set up my 20/40m linked dipole in the tree next to the shelter as an inverted vee and got on the air almost two hours late. I spent the first half of the day almost exclusively on 20m with some brief periods on 40m. I also tried using the antenna on 15m when set to 40m using the FT-991’s internal tuner, and it tuned up fine! I never heard a ton of signals on 15m, but I did make a number of contacts both Saturday and Sunday.
It was very hot on Saturday (highs in the 90s and a heat index over 100), but between the large shelter and the annoying constant ~20mph wind, the heat actually didn’t bother me much. By around 7 p.m., I switched over to 40m exclusively and worked until the event ended for the day at 9 p.m. I finished Saturday with 177 QSOs. I then packed up and headed to my hotel in Junction City.
The next morning, I awoke and planned to arrive at the county corner about 30 minutes before the event started at 9 a.m. Of course, various delays meant I got there more like 5 minutes before contest start, but setup was fairly quick using my same linked dipole with my 25-foot drive-on mast and the radio on the passenger seat. I made my first contact at about 9:15 a.m. and was off to the races. With no commercial power, I was using my 20 Ah Bioenno battery and hoping it would last the six hours ahead of me. With each contact counting for three, my score quickly went up. Band conditions on 20m were also good for me during the morning.
This location was quite convenient for this type of operation. The road dead-ended at two farm property gates and had a little area that was not part of private property where I could straddle the three counties and stretch out my antenna. The last two miles of road were a little hairy at times for my Honda Accord, but they would have been easy for basically any SUV or truck. There were no homes for a distance, so I was hopeful it would be quiet. About an hour in, a UTV drove up with a farmer staring at my running vehicle (I don’t blame him). I jumped out to talk to him with hopes he wouldn’t try to kick me out or threaten to call the Sheriff. Luckily, he was genuinely curious and friendly. I also explicitly asked him if it was OK for me to be there and to confirm I wasn’t on anyone’s property, in the spirit of giving him a non-confrontational way of telling me to leave, but he said there was no problem at all for me to be there. He then said he was sorry for keeping me from things and left. I was really happy with this interaction; no matter who is in the right, all it takes is someone to be suspicious and call law enforcement, who will tell you to leave to keep the peace. Too often, I find hams overly defensive of their activities, and then they increase tensions with people, which leads to negative outcomes. Being respectful, reasonable, and kind goes a long way. For the remainder of the day, the only other visitors I had were grazing cows.
I switched to 15m at one point and made a few contacts, and I could hear several Hawaii stations for their QSO party (they never heard me), plus some from Europe. By early afternoon, 20m was quieting down, so I jumped to 40m to grab any Kansas stations, and then back to 20m to close out the event. This spot had cell service, so I was able to spot myself multiple times and then run pileups. I even completed a sked with KK7AC, who was specifically looking for Chase County, which is always a good feeling. About twenty minutes before the event ended, my Bioenno battery died. I switched my radio to be powered from the cable run I have to my vehicle battery to my mobile radio and continued on just fine. At 3 p.m., I quickly tore down and headed home.
My final score was 64,974 with 663 total contacts and 49 multipliers, broken down by band as:
- 75 QSOs on 40m
- 576 QSOs on 20m
- 12 QSOs on 15m
This year was probably my favorite of the four years I’ve done this. For one, by only setting up once per day and not driving all those miles, I was much less tired than in the past. I also racked up a higher score for that effort. My radio and antenna setup was capable yet simple, and I had a headset that made pileups easier. The main negative item to note from the whole weekend was my own fault: I built a headset interface box for a PC headset in the couple of months preceding the event but didn’t test it much. I received several negative comments about audio quality (one of which was rather rude—do you want me to put you in the log or not?) that I need to address before next time. An other item is a renewed motivation to make the setup somewhat self-contained, so moving it from my home to the car to the park shelter and back is faster.
Next year, I’ll probably do something similar. I now have a nice catalog of locations I have confidence in within about three hours of home. It is nice to spend Saturday at a spot with restrooms and power nearby, so I will likely do that again. Since county lines and corners tend to not be in areas with commercial power, relegating that to Sunday, where the event is only six hours rather than twelve, seems to be a good idea.
Thanks again to Bob, W0BH, for organizing the Kansas QSO Party. He always does an excellent job, and his efforts pay off in how much fun this event is. I look forward to doing it again next year!
