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Several suggestions:<br>
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<td valign="top">1. <br>
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<td valign="top"> How about some one (or some committee/group
within MRRC) thinking about
ways to not only "cover" all the counties, but to try to make sure they
are at least "semi available" to folks both within Michigan and outside
the state?<br>
<br>
The same might hold for the Ohio QSO Party.<br>
<br>
There seems to be a clique which coordinates efforts amongst
themselves and/or who make predetermined schedules of time/frequency
for contacts. I say this because even when the folks in Ohio publicize
their routes, and approximate times they'll be in particular counties,
it seems to be very, very difficult, if not impossible, to find these
folks. This was even the case last year during OQP when conditions
were good to excellent, we at W8B were at a site with NO electrical
noise from power lines (being at least ½ mile from the nearest power
line), and the OQP web site had published lists of approximate times
and frequencies.<br>
<br>
With the rotten conditions of the latest MiQP, any mobile who was on 40
meters was impossible to hear unless he/she happened to be within a few
miles of this location. So, only those counties covered during the
late afternoon and evening hours were possible to contact on 80
metres. I did find a few mobiles on 80 metres, some of them looking
for KENT, but others calling CQ, and I then looked for them in several
counties and got the multipliers.<br>
<br>
Maybe a "rover" category similar to the OQP could be used for MiQP?
One could "rove" amongst three or four counties for a couple hours each
during the day on 40/20 metres, and on 80/75 for a couple hours. As
one fellow said to me privately, a 30' mast and full size antenna would
be a great help in radiating power compared to a wimpy mobile antenna.<br>
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<td valign="top">2.<br>
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<td valign="top">Another kink to try - how about contacting the
emergency coordinators (EC) of each county (or multiple counties if
some EC's cover more than one county, and invite the emergency groups
to participate as a training exercise and as a way to demonstrate to
governmental officials that they can contact many (all?) the counties
within Michigan. These kind of data could be very useful in
negotiating with county officials for space, financial resources, et.
cetera. The EC in Hamilton County, Ohio was always asking me how he
could best contact other areas of the state when I lived down there.
Until this discussion, I didn't think of asking him and his fellow EC's
to encourage participation in the state QSO party.....<br>
<br>
The roster of EC's is available at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.mi-arpsc.org/Section_Staff.htm">http://www.mi-arpsc.org/Section_Staff.htm</a><br>
<br>
In other words, there's more than one way to skin a cat.<br>
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<td valign="top">3.<br>
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<td valign="top">Overall, MiQP didn't seem to have nearly as much
activity as other state QSO parties in which I participated. As
someone else said, Easter probably created lots of personal conflicts,
and marginal propagation probably discouraged others. <br>
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Just a few ideas from a non-contester who happens to like a few
selected State QSO parties.<br>
<br>
73 de n8xx Hg<br>
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