2025 PA QSO Party Bonus Station
The 2025 Bonus Station is N3XF operating from Somerset County.
From Dave, N3XF:
2025 is my 60th anniversary of being a licensed Ham. I have participated in state QSO Parties since my first year of being licensed. I moved to PA in 1984 and applied for the call sign N3XF.
The station is located on Laurel Mountain about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh at an elevation of 2750 feet. The Somerset/Westmoreland county line runs directly under my towers, but we will operate from Somerset County to conform with the PA QSO Party bonus station rules.
We will have one station on SSB and a second station on CW for the entire duration of the PA QSO Party. We will run high power on all bands from 80 meters through 2 meters. Probably low power on 160 meters. We will be available on 6 and 2 meters, CW, SSB and FM simplex.
We will have a dedicated operator continually spotting our activity to QSO Party Hub and the PA QSO Party spotting page.
From Dave, N3XF, after the Party:
Thank you for the honor of being the 2025 Bonus Station.
We were able to generate 1796 QSO's which results in 359,200 bonus points! The totals far exceeded my expectations. The station didn't experience any issues and the temporary antenna I put up for 160 even generated a QSO on that band with OM2VL.
I am very proud of the team that joined me. K1ZE, AG3I and I are experienced contesters. We were joined by K3VL, W3DEC, NJ3T and KR3L, who only have experience in Field Day, but they really caught on early and by Sunday afternoon, they were producing over 75 Q's per hour all while chatting and encouraging the participants we were working and having a good time.
One of the highlights occurred when we were called by KJ5MVP. It was his very first QSO after recently getting his license.
Thanks again for the opportunity.
Dave N3XF
We were able to generate 1796 QSO's which results in 359,200 bonus points! The totals far exceeded my expectations. The station didn't experience any issues and the temporary antenna I put up for 160 even generated a QSO on that band with OM2VL.
I am very proud of the team that joined me. K1ZE, AG3I and I are experienced contesters. We were joined by K3VL, W3DEC, NJ3T and KR3L, who only have experience in Field Day, but they really caught on early and by Sunday afternoon, they were producing over 75 Q's per hour all while chatting and encouraging the participants we were working and having a good time.
One of the highlights occurred when we were called by KJ5MVP. It was his very first QSO after recently getting his license.
Thanks again for the opportunity.
Dave N3XF