Minnesota Wireless Association – Radiosport from Minnesota

The armies of North, Hennepin and South were all prepared for the battle, Many entrenched in their igloos, their yagis poised to rotate. Some ventured out onto the battlefield in antenna drenched mobiles or heated tents. Scott, KA9FOX, even grabbed reinforcements from Wisconsin to invade Houston County in an all-terrain, battle-hardened, QSO Party Command Center! As everyone prepared for the bedlam that lay ahead, one thing was on everyone’s mind….warm pepperoni and soft, melted cheese!

1400 zulu arrived and an S9 wave of RF pulsed from the heartland! Wave after wave, the RF pushed the Polar Vortex outward on 80, 40 & 20. After ten hours, even Mother Nature felt tired. As the snow settled after the Party, the only thing that fell faster than the temperature, were the all-time records! As Charlie, NG0C, broke down his tent after dark, he heard Old Man Winter whistling through the trees: “This battle won’t be decided until the Abominable Log Checker has laid waste to the logs.”

Ten hours of combat on the airwaves and there is a hint to a winner. We’ll know the actual winner in a few months. Til then, the stories of the ‘Frozen QSO Party Battle Of 2021’ will be told around campfires and in cabins across the Northwoods!

Congrats to everyone who got on the air! It looks like we’ll have new Single-Operator, Multi-Operator and Mobile records! I believe we’ll also have a new record for log submissions. We also have 100 MWA’ers who were active….a new record! I’m not sure of actual numbers but we must’ve produced a couple hundred thousand QSO’s on Saturday! We really kicked off the 2021 State QSO Party Challenge in style! Well done MWA, well done!

As listed above, we can declare a winner, but it’s going to come down to log checking and the search for Golden Logs. All teams are searching for extra logs to help boost their chances. As of 9:00am, Friday, February 12th, with 99% of the Counties reporting in, we can declare Team Hennepin as the winner of the 2021 Minnesota QSO Party pizza point. Team South is looking for extra logs, hanging Chads, and looking to the Log Checker for clarity. This is the closest set of results in MWA history, with Team Hennepin topping Team South by a margin of .05%. This works out to about six QSO’s! Here are the results:

Team Hennepin – 1,005,974 points (Up 151.74% over last year!) – 24 active stations (58.54% of the team)
Team South – 2,693,754 points (Up 151.69% over last year!) – 48 active stations (71.64% of the team)
Team North – 1,286,194 points (Up 65.10% over last year!) – 28 active stations (50.00% of the team)
TOTAL MWA – 4,985,922 points (Up 121.70% over last year!) – 100 active stations (60.98% of the club)

The 4.9 million points is an all time record for MWA, beating the previous score of 3.2 million points in 2012. The Team South score of 2.6 million points would be listed as the 6th highest entire MWA score! Again, congrats to everyone!

Now onto the pizza. Team Hennepin knew they needed to win MNQP and sweep the remaining contests to win the pizza. They took a huge step forward by winning MNQP. MNQP is good for a single pizza point but it also is the tiebreaker for the year. The next pizza point is ARRL DX CW and Team Hennepin has the easiest path. They need to beat their 1.8 million points from last year. Team South needs to beat their pre-pandemic score of 11.1 million points.