K4TMC 2025 IOTA Contest - SOLP SSB Island NA112

[James Jordan]

Wow, Henry, that was a great show for IOTA! You really were a glutton for punishment in that heat and humidity. Well done!
73,
Jim
Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 28, 2025, at 12:23 PM, Henry Pollock - K4TMC <kilo4tmc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.