K4TMC 2025 IOTA Contest - SOLP SSB Island NA112

[Henry Pollock - K4TMC]

Call: *K4TMC <https://www.3830scores.com/findcall.php?call=K4TMC>*
Operator(s): K4TMC <https://www.3830scores.com/findcall.php?call=K4TMC>
Station: K4TMC

Class: *SO24SSB LP*
QTH: NA112
Operating Time (hrs): 15
Location: Island-Fixed
Summary:   Compare Scores
<https://www.3830scores.com/comparescores.php?arg=RveLizV7YDnnU&call=K4TMC>
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
80: 0 0 0 0
40: 0 0 6 6
20: 0 0 353 43
15: 0 0 32 7
10: 0 0 1 1
Total: *0* *0* *392* *57* Total Score *170,430 **

This was my first return to the Atlantic Beach, NC ‘Sand Dune’ contest site
since August 2024, post XYL fall recovery. There was a lot of hot air and
high humidity both day and night with only minimal wind (being 200 yards
from the crashing waves at the waters edge).

This was an unassisted with no self spotting Field Day-style
Fixed/DXpedition hybrid IOTA Island Station category effort. I met all of
the DXpedition rules except I was able to drive to the island (Bogue
Banks), thus forcing me to the Fixed Category. In 2023 I operated with a
BuddiHex beam (only 2 elements on 10, 15 & 20) and endfed halfwave
verticals on 20 & 40. For this 2025 effort I upgraded to 2 of the BuddiHex
beams with only the 10, 15 & 20M elements installed. After reading Ed,
N1EK’s May PVRC Newsletter article about EFHW antennas, I decided to try
using a single Inverted-L wire to provide 10 through 80 coverage instead of
separate band EFHW verticals. As luck would have it, I failed to get the
EFHW vertical installed, primarily due to only having one day to get the
antennas erected, and the awfully hot and humid conditions. The first
BuddiHex on the Mastwerks 10M mast did not tune well after installation, so
I had to lower it back down, found a broken wire on the balun lead, add
spare balun, raise back up. After getting the second BuddiHex erected on a
BlueSky Mast AL1 system I almost fainted before getting inside to the cool
air conditioning. The family said “enough!”; even Zoe the dog barked a lot.

Some might consider the need for the second hexbeam versus rotating the
one. I wanted to switch instantly when the weaker callers were not in the
beam of the other antenna. This worked well when being called by Westerly
stations. Plus, I wanted to be prepared for possible JA, VK, ZL, etc.
callers.

Just before the 1200Z contest start I went outside to walk Zoe and do a
last check on the antenna mast guying. It was still awfully hot and humid,
and no breeze. In front of the rig as things started to warm up on the
bands, except 10M, which stayed dead for the entire contest. 15M was OK but
not nearly as productive as 20. Picked a quiet spot around 14.257 and
started running. First hour was slow with a rate of only 25; however,
things picked up later in the morning. Still, the rates were never great
anytime during the contest. I assume that since they allowed self-spotting
for the contest, most ops were just clicking on spots versus turning the
main VFO knob. Some of us still believe that self-spotting is a form of
Assistance! I spent about 90% of my time just running, and only did S&P
when the rate slowed significantly.

I worked fellow PVRCer IOTA teams N4OV (Harkers Island) and N4C (Core
Banks) on multiple bands. N4OV was a 3-man effort and N4C was a 2-man
effort. Looking forward to seeing their reports as a comparison to my 1-man
effort. Most other island stations were European (EU) or North American,
although I did find 3 African and 2 South American. Still, most contacts
were with non-island (World category) stations. Recently inducted CQ
Contest Hall of Famer K4BAI also called in from GA. I was really surprised
to get calls from a BG0 and UA9! Interesting, as I write this Monday
morning, I received an email note directly from UA9YJO requesting that I
put my log into LoTW. He wants to add NA112 to his 1000+ confirmed island
QSOs.

As a result of not getting the EFHW vertical installed, I had given up on
working 40M. However, at one point Saturday evening 20 seemed to have dried
up, so I went to 40 to see how things were going there. I noted a number of
EU island stations booming in. So, I tried to see if the K3 tuner could
make itself happy driving the triband hexbeam on 40. It worked and I picked
up 6 new 15-point contacts. My apologies to N4C for not knowing this
earlier in the day when we could have added 40 to our multiband contacts.
After 13 hrs BIC I finished Saturday night with 377 QSOs and 55 Island
Mults.

Band noise was S2 to 3, during the day making it hard to work the weakest
signals. The noise was much lower in the evening.

I was back at the rig Sunday morning at 1000Z for the last 2 hours of the
contest on 20M and only picked up a handful of more contacts and only 2 new
island stations. I lost 2 contacts just before the end due to bad audio
from the callers or my fatigue. I spent 2 minutes trying make out one guy’s
call. And then it was over…the band was quite, except for the AL QSO Party
and POTA operations. Relative to my 2023 effort, there was a 17% increase
in QSOs and 50% score increase.

As it was still early in the morning, and temperature and humidity were
rapidly rising, I had to immediately start taking down and packaging the 2
BuddiHex antennas for their next adventures, maybe the NAQP SSB and US
Islands QSO Party in August.

Overall, I am very pleased with the results of my effort at a ripe old age
of 73. As a bonus from the extreme physical and mental conditions
experienced I lost a desirable 4 lbs; my doctor will be happy! Oh, did I
say it was very hot and humid…

Station: Facility is family beach house on top of a 15 -18 ft ancient sand
dune approximately 200 yards from ocean to the South, and 50 yards from
saltwater marsh and sound to the East – West; Elecraft K3+ with Heil HC-4
mic element; two Buddipole BuddiHex, oriented to Europe at 25 ft and West
at 30 ft.

73,

Henry – K4TMC

* N1MM rescore tool resulted in another 2565 points than what I reported to
3830.