Skeeter Hunt 2018

Bzzz… All that buzzing you heard on the bands on Sunday was the annual running of the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt contest. Happily, I got home from my recent vacation in time to join in the hunt.

The theme of this year’s contest was “water – the breeding ground for Skeeters!” In the spirit of the theme, I headed down to Upper Schuylkill Valley Park along the Schuylkill River near Royersford, Pennsylvania.

It had been raining all morning and it was drizzling when I got to the park and started setting up. Because of the inclement weather, I opted to operate from inside my truck.  I put my usual 19-foot vertical on the back of the truck and fired up my KX3. I tested the rig on 40M by working a SOTA station in Vermont and a special event station in Illinois.

As I was operating, a fellow was curious about my antenna and walked over to ask about it. As I started to explain what I was doing, we both recognized each other. As it turns out, we were childhood friends and grew up less than a block away from each other. He happened to be visiting in the area and took his grand-kids fishing in the river. We hadn’t seen each other in more than 40 years, so we spent a half hour chatting and getting caught up. If he hadn’t been curious about my antenna, we never would have noticed each other. What an amazing coincidence!

Back to the contest… I operated for about an hour and a half. There was some deep fading on the bands but 20M eventually seemed to open up a bit. I bounced between 40M and 20M, alternating between CQing and search & pounce.  When it started raining again, I figured it was a good time to wrap things up. I ended up with 20 QSOs (18 skeeters) in 11 SPCs.

Here’s my log:

UTC  BAND  CALL   MODE RST-S RST-R SPC  SKEETER NUMBER
1703 40M   N3AQC  CW   559   449   PA   Skeeter #77
1713 40M   KD3CA  CW   589   579   PA   Skeeter #44
1720 40M   VE2DDZ CW   569   559   QC   Skeeter #35
1723 40M   N8RVE  CW   559   559   OH   5W
1727 40M   WF4I   CW   579   559   NC   Skeeter #70
1733 40M   WQ4RP  CW   559   559   NC   Skeeter #11
1804 20M   W5IQS  CW   559   559   TX   Skeeter #170
1807 20M   KF5RY  CW   559   559   TX   Skeeter #26
1811 20M   NN9K   CW   599   599   IL   Skeeter #64
1817 20M   AD0YM  CW   599   449   MO   Skeeter #16
1821 20M   NE5DL  CW   559   559   TX   Skeeter #25
1825 20M   NQ3N   CW   599   579   FL   Skeeter #141
1829 20M   WB4OMM CW   579   579   FL   Skeeter #98
1841 20M   N5GW   CW   599   569   MS   5W
1844 20M   KD0V   CW   569   559   MN   Skeeter #99
1851 20M   W3HZZ  CW   559   559   GA   Skeeter #131
1907 20M   N0JBF  CW   559   559   MO   Skeeter #37
1913 20M   K4BYF  CW   599   549   FL   Skeeter #107
1915 20M   K4BAI  CW   559   589   GA   Skeeter #163
1920 40M   NK9G   CW   559   559   WI   Skeeter #6

As always, the Skeeter Hunt was fun, even with the lousy weather. Thanks to Larry W2LJ and the NJQRP Club for once again putting on this great contest!

72, Craig WB3GCK