Congrats to Clint W9AV for overall high score.  He operated multiple simultaneous Tx in a park.  Amazing!

Soapbox

My usual second op, Quent W6RI, was unable to travel to Wisconsin this year, and so I did a SO4R operation from our usual location in a tent on the bank of the Wisconsin River in US-5643. The main radio was on 20 and 40 SSB and CW, a second radio was dedicated to multipliers on 40 SSB, a third radio was on 15 FTx, and a fourth radio was on 10, 20, and 40 FTx. The day started out nice but ended in a hard rain with much lightning and thunder. The bands were brutally noisy throughout. I ended with a good number of QSOs (512) but fewer multipliers than usual (12) because some active WI parks were never spotted on 40 SSB. Thanks to the organizers, activators, and hunters!

Clint W9AV

My first time trying POTA (30 years licensed). Be gentle. hi hi 73

Kirt N9WVD

Had to end early due to inclement weather and running out of battery.

Thomas AC9BJ

Wish more people were on 40m and 80m.

Matthew KD9DZT

I worked part of the WIPOTA in US-9815 Park and then due to weather, I went home and hunted four more contacts. Therefore, two files are attached.

Carl N9NAV

Another year of Wisconsin POTA (my third), another round of strong-to-severe thunderstorms in the middle of the afternoon! Results were not as impressive as previous years between using 40m for regional comms (despite being long enough to hear Puerto Rico in the afternoon) and the storms across the state. Activators on digital were also out of reach for my multipliers as a phone + paper sort of station.

I started at US-4250 this year because it was convenient for me to get-out-and-go with a lunch pickup on the way what with a slow start to my day. Unfortunately, local equipment to the park (shelter bathrooms) resulted in too much interference when the reservation holders for the day arrived, so I had additional downtime between packing up, 10+ mile move, and waiting out the storms. I decided on the unambiguous move second park of US-1448 on the other side of Madison rather than the potentially more convenient US-4238 nearby. Overall move was EN53IA to EN53EC, grids located about 17.9 miles apart. Next year I’ll look to have a more certain single-versus-multiple plan in the pocket including a more tactical approach to equipment in use.

As per the usual overlap in domestic contests, 20m was an absolute zoo, but still valuable to the QRPer. Solar conditions were too hot for much on 80m, but I made sure to use the random wire that could tune there for a local not-in-park operator. Correspondingly, 15m was good both for DX into Europe from WWFF chasers early on and domestic POTA hunters by the afternoon without the stacks of contesters (though there were certainly some big stations out there). I didn’t try much for 10m. Without the closer coordination of encountering another activator in-park, the VHF setup ended up being dead weight and setup/teardown time. Next year I should probably plan for a better 40m antenna for local comms; my random wires were at a fairly high angle this year.

Looking forward to seeing the second year’s results for QRP! I’m not sure how many other ops I got were in the category, but there was definitely some community interest.

Thomas WN1C

WIPOTA is my favorite contest of the whole year and I’ve had great past success. But this year the weather Gods played havoc with my plans. Lightning delayed my start by almost 90 minutes costing me the precious opportunity for those early in state multipliers on 40-meters. That, along with another lightning storm that rolled in at 4:30 pm cost me over 2 hours of operating time and created S9 noise on 40-meters all day long. I still managed to make about 375 contacts, but the multiplier battle was a lost cause here at Lake Wissota State Park. I had a solid plan and a competitive setup, but it just wasn’t meant to be this year. I still had fun and will be back again next year to give it another go.

Dave KZ9V

The setup was a Yaesu FT-710 at 100 Watts and a half wave end fed antenna 66ft long.
Had a good time and operated about 3 1/2 hours.

Bob KC9RF

Too bad Murpy showed up to mess with my CW plans!

Anne KC9YL

The storms were brutal on numbers. First, I made the tactical error of believing the radar indicated storm travel directions, which led to a little more than an hour late start, since the storms actually followed me. Then all the crashes made 40m near impossible. That being said, I had some great runs and a great time.

Brian KB9TBB