[PVRCNC] K4TMC ARRL 10M SO SSB LP

[Henry Pollock - K4TMC]

Call: K4TMC
Operator(s): K4TMC
Station: K4TMC

Class: SO SSB LP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 15.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:    0     0
  SSB:  419     47
-------------------
Total:  419    47  Total Score = 39,386


First, congratulations to Ed, K5OF for his great Single Op LP SSB effort.  Ed
is only about 12 miles from my portable Atlantic Beach site, so we were
hearing basically the same stations with the same propagation.  Ultimately,
his extra time Friday night and higher antennas generated the higher score.
Sadly, neither of our efforts can count toward club score total.

My wife says I spend more time planning for each contest in the days and
weeks before than most people do preparing for a wedding. For those of us
who've become obsessed, it's no longer a habit. It's a ritual. It's a
ceremony. It involves fire (or at least high heat), water, air, earth,
and—dare I say—spirit.

10 Meter contesting is where I developed my operating skills (for better or
worse), experimented with various radios, subsequent modifications and
accessories.  10 meters is where you can have significant gain antennas
that are manageable by one person.  As a result, I spent too many hours
playing with ELNEC/EZNEC over the years looking to see how various antenna
configurations (including broken/bent elements, sagging/sloping boom)
affect antenna performance.  And, I have done a lot of back-of-the-envelope
math along the way.  Although originally designed to survive being
suspended in large oak trees at my previous North Raleigh QTH, the
4-element yagi has stainless steel whip elements mounted through a
heavy-duty boom made from aluminum 4 ft sections of military camo support
poles.  So, everything is fixed except the spacing of the driven element
between the reflector and first director.  The Moxon is the 10M MFJ unit
and the vertical was a PAR EF-10 tied to the top of a 43 ft fiberglass pole
mounted to the upper deck of the house.  That put the vertical clearly
above all the surrounding beach houses with the exception of a nearby quad
level townhouse due Southwest.  I did have openings between the other beach
homes to allow me a clear view of salt water marsh/bay/intercoastal
waterway to the NE and NW.  Being on the sand dune top put the yagi at
about 40 ft above sea level.

I spent all day Friday assembling and erecting the antennas alone at the
Atlantic Beach house, and was a little exhausted by the start of the
contest, but excited to see how they performed, hoping that the salt
moisture accumulating on the elements would improve the bandwidth a little.

Well…the first hour was disappointing, enough to make a non-contester think
– these contesters must be crazy.  The band was dead except for one local
station (K5OF).  Instead of S&Ping for any signal, I decided to start the
run effort and let them find me.  I spent the dead time catching up on
email.  Then just before the first hour ticked away, the band exploded to
the Midwest.  I finally called it at 0330 with 220+ in the log.  Saturday
was nothing great, worked a number of TX, FL and LA early morning before
propagation moved to S. & Central America.  Luckily I snagged an HP9 as his
last contact before moving to some net activity.

Sunday morning around 1400 there was a brief opening into New England and
other areas but nothing like Friday night.  Then at 1530 the band changed
and all of a sudden the vertical was better to everywhere – New England,
Mid West, South West and West Coast.  I kept slugging it out Sunday
afternoon mixing running with S&P and hoping that there would be an earlier
repeat of Friday evening.  Alas, it never occurred.  It was interesting
that around 2350 a ZP9 station was just above the noise level with a very
fluttering signal such that it took a while to determine his call.  I could
not get him to hear me.

Never heard any Europe or N. Africa stations.  I did work an NL7…but he was
in FL.

Looking forward to next year!

Rig: Elecraft K3+/100 with Heil HC4 element

Antennas: (on sand dune 20 ft ASL) 4 element yagi at 20 ft

10M Moxon at 16 ft

PAR EndFed 10 vertical with top at 52 ft