The Pennsylvania QSO Party has aged well and has been growing in recent years to become a leader among state QSO parties around the country. This year, it's offering an innovative new enticement to increase activity - team competition.

Anthony “Goody” Good, K3NG, vice president of the PA QSO Party Association, says this latest enhancement was the result of thinking outside the box.

GOOD: “Two-to-four single operators can get together and call themselves a team – you have to register on the website: paqso.org – and we’re offering awards and certificates for the team competition. There’s four categories – stations in Pennsylvania, United States outside of Pennsylvania, Canada and DX.”

MARK: “Team members don’t have to operate from the same location. They can get their team score by combining scores from their individual locations. Good says this idea follows last year’s push to get PA stations to spend more time on the high bands – 10, 15 and 20 meters – to draw more out-of-PA competitors.”

GOOD: “One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got from stations outside of Pennsylvania over the years, especially West Coast folks, was ‘Hey, we want to work more stations in the party. But, we can’t hear them on 40 and 80 and, you know, we’d work the party more if you had more high band activity.’ “

MARK: Last year, awards were introduced for PA stations spending more time on the high bands and that produced a 55 percent increase there along with more out-of-state participation. Good is optimistic that figure could grow this year.

For more about the PA QSO Party, check out the link to the group’s website in the text version of this story at arnewsline.org.