Articles

By Ralph Matheny, K8RYU

My interest in the Ohio QSO Party and in portable operation
isn't new. A favorite memory of my high school Novice years in
ham radio involves the Party, and just for fun I'll tell the
story here.

It's 1961, probably February or March. The local "Elmer" to
many of us, Carl, W8VZ, speaks of the Ohio QSO Party on our local
net on 75 meter phone. Telling us all of the fun to be had,
passing along the details of rules, procedures, etc., he lights
just a small fire which burns to this day. I vow to operate the

Like any social gathering, the Ohio QSO Party (and those of other states as well) have a few largely unspoken rules of etiquette. Many are a lot like etiquette for any party. To get you a bit more familiar, here are a few of them:

Here are some pics Jim sent after the OQP. Enjoy.

K8MR/m starting location in Carroll County.

K8RYU in Lawrence county K8MR and K8RYU in Lawrence County.

I noted that PREBle county hadn't been reported in the submitted logs for any fixed station during the 2001 OQP.  I was searching for a semi "rare DX" location for the 2002 party, but wanted something close to Cincinnati.  PREBle county is only 37 miles from my location, so it seemed logical.

Jay, K4ZLE, joined the effort.  A couple weeks before the event I went up to Camden, a village about 6 miles inside the county, and scouted possible sites.  Neither of the two parks had electricity, so I chose a state highway stop next to US-127.  It had a couple 40 to 50'ish foot trees, and a shorter tree strategically located so we could string G5RV antenna at right angles to each other, and separated by a reasonable distance.   We solved the electricity problem by renting a 3 KW generator.

Neither of us is much of a voice operator, but I volunteered to run SSB.  However my TR-7 hadn't been used for phone in several years, so when I fired it up we got reports of 60 Hz buzz.  Quickly we brought Jay's Alinco into the picture, and it worked like a charm.  Jay used his ICOM 706 for CW.