2021 PA QSO Party Bonus Station
The 2021 Bonus Station operation is the Red Rose Repeater Association, in Lancaster, PA. The operation will be located in Lancaster County using the callsign of W3RRR, and is in celebration of the 35th anniversary of their hamfest.
In 1986, the Red Rose Repeater Association decided to organize an event they first called The Tailgate Fest. Amateurs could drive to the local park, claim a parking spot, and sell various items they no longer had a use for. It was common for newer hams to gather needed equipment at a reasonable price and receive guidance from the seller and other Elmers who were on site. The event has grown yearly and the Red Rose Repeater Association is proud of each new licensee and upgrade to come out of the Hamfest testing sessions. Additionally, presentations are given on various topics of interest such as traffic handling and emergency communications.
Red Rose is beyond excited and honored to be YOUR bonus station for this year's event! Our mission is "No Station Left Behind". We want to get bonus points in the logs of every station hunting for them and to achieve that, we'll be focusing on two important aspects:1) Band availability: We'll have capabilities for 160m-2m during the event and will post a live (read-only) link to our Google Sheets schedule showing which bands are active at which times and who is operating.
2) Active Communications: We'll have staff members dedicated to spotting us on the CWFUN page, appropriate Facebook page(s), and anywhere else continuously throughout the event. Please stalk us! We will also be reading and responding to comments posted on Facebook threads that may have band requests or feedback that will help us with the above mentioned mission. While we won't be able to honor all requests, this will help us see trends and shape our activation to best suit you.Finally, a few points of interest and guidelines for QSO`ing with us:- We will not respond to or act on comments left on spotting clusters asking for band/mode changes. Those are for spotting, not dialoguing.- We will not be responding to tail-enders. All operators will be following the same script when it comes to completing a QSO and becoming available for a new call. If you don't hear "This is W3RRR for the PA QSO Party, QRZed?" please wait. CW ops will be sending something appropriate ending in QRZ. "QRZ" will be the final transmission sent when we're ready for your call after completing a QSO.- We have QSL cards available and would love to receive yours! Please send an SASE with your card and we'll get one back to you.- All PA QSO Party QSOs will be logged in LotW and QRZ.comThank you! We look forward to adding you to our logs (several times!).73,Alex W3AVP, 2021 W3RRR Bonus Station Coordinator