Achievements
| Bonus Points | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Achieved | Possible | Scored |
| 100% Emergency Power all stations |  |
200 | 200 |
| Media Publicity | |
100 | 100 |
| Set-up in Public Place | |
100 | 100 |
| Information Booth | |
100 | 100 |
| NTS message to ARRL SM/SEC | |
100 | 100 |
| W1AW Bulletin | |
100 | 100 |
| Formal NTS messages handled | |
100 | 100 |
| Satellite QSO Completed |  |
100 | 0 |
| Five Natural power QSOs completed | ~3 | 100 | 0 |
| Site Visit by invited elected official | |
100 | 0 |
| Site Visit by invited served agency official | |
100 | 100 |
| 100 GOTA station QSOs achieved | |
100 | 100 |
| Non-Traditional Demonstration modes | |||
| 1: APRS | |
100 | 100 |
| 2: SSTV | |
100 | 0 |
| 3: ATV | |
100 | 0 |
| Total Bonus Points | 1600 | 1100 | |
Field Day Results
Field Day results have been posted on the ARRL website. PAARA easily won the # 1 category 2A spot in the Santa Clara Valley section out of 10 entries with a score of 6,004. San Mateo RC was # 2 (4,446) and FARS was # 3 (3,626.) This year we did not win the Pacific Division for 2A. We came in # 4 out of 21 entries. But our somewhat lower score this year isn’t what cost us the # 1 spot, as our best score ever would not have been enough to beat the Sonoma County Radio Amateurs, who posted an impressive score of 11,174. That made them # 4 in the nation for category 2A. Very very well done!
# 2 in the Pacific Division was the Mother Lode DX and contest club from Sacramento Valley (7,850) and # 3 was the Madera County ARC from San Joaquin Valley (7,254.) Our highest ever score was 8,740 in 2003 and 7,994 in 2002. We were Pacific Division champions both those years for category 2A. So if we had repeated our results from either of those years, we would have placed # 2 this year.
PAARA was # 56 in the nation out of 455 category 2A entries. So only 12% of the entries beat our score. Not too bad.
PAARA was # 182 in the nation out of 2,249 entries for all categories. So only 8% of all the entries beat our score. That sounds even better.
Stanford was # 1 in the Pacific Division for all categories with a score of 22,694, using eight stations on the air. Very impressive, as we would expect from them. In fact they were # 3 in the nation for all categories. They were bested only by W3AO at 32,372 (with 50 stations on the air) and KP2AA from the US Virgin Islands.
And get this. KP2AA had 25,630 points using only 4 stations, QRP power level and battery power. They produced just shy of twice as many QSOs as PAARA. Wow! You can read about their effort on the ARRL site. With our score and qso count PAARA would have placed # 2 in the Pacific Division for category 3A and 4A and we would have won categories 5A, 6A, 7A, 8A and on up.
Clearly 2A is the most competitive category. Detailed results are available on the ARRL Website. (You must be an ARRL member to get to the results.) Let’s start plotting our strategy for next year right away. I’d like to see us crack 10,000 points! With good planning I think we could accomplish such a goal. If they can do it in Sonoma County we should be able to do it in Santa Clara County.
73,
~Ron Chester, W6AZ
