CQWWSSB K4TMC SOSB10 LP

[Henry Pollock - K4TMC]

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2025

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

Class: SOSB10 LP Unassisted
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    0     0        0
   80:    0     0        0
   40:    0     0        0
   20:    0     0        0
   15:    0     0        0
   10:  658    28      109
------------------------------
Total:  658    28      109  Total Score = 263,588

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:
Portable Field Day-style operation from ancient sand dune (15 to 18 ft ASL)
at
Atlantic Beach, NC (Bogue Banks), Grid FM14pq, IOTA NA-112, US Islands
NC-010S.

Notes:

Wow! A great trip…the weather was great, the company (wife Mary Ann and dog
Zoe) was wonderful, local beef brisket (yes…at the beach) was as good as
ever, and the contest was awesome; more about that below. Originally
planned to drive down Wednesday afternoon such that I would have all day
Thursday and Friday to casually get the antennas assembled and erected. I
believe in the saying… you cannot have too many antennas. Sadly, we were
not able to leave until noon on Thursday. So, it was a mad rush (again!) to
get the antennas up and deploy the cables through the house to the rig. I
would have liked to install at least 2 more fixed yagis. As it was, I was
able to only get a short 1 hour nap (at 73 I really needed it) before
dinner and the contest start.

Friday night start was a bust, even though Friday afternoon the band was in
good condition with lots of stations on calling CQ. Only managed 2 contacts
over a 2 hour stint tuning the VFO knob between 28.300 and 28.600. So what
does a good XYL say…”was this trip really worth it!

Saturday morning I was up at 1030Z. With a fresh mug of coffee, I was
mentally prepared to just do S&P-only for the day and maybe switch to
running if the conditions were good. As it turned out, by mid-morning the
band was full from 28.200 all the way to above 29.000. So, I just kept
going with the S&P since it was getting me a lot of new mults with every
turn of the dial. I finally did a short run in the afternoon before the
weak Europeans disappeared. Worked a number of JA and VK before the band
went out. Finished the evening at 2330Z, working a fading VK, with 357 Qs,
98 countries and 27 zones. I logged into the Online Scoreboard, entered my
day’s results, and was surprised to be No. 1 in the SO-10 LP list followed
closely by 9Z4CT.

Sunday morning I was at the rig again, coffee in hand, waiting for the band
to open and devote the day to mostly running. Finally started to make
contacts at 1130Z doing S&P (with too many dupe stations and only a few new
mults) looking for a good place to run. Found a good spot around 28.918 and
started running at 1230Z. The first half hour run was slow, not much better
rate than the previous hour of S&P.  At 1300Z a MI1 contact said he was
putting me on the cluster. Wow…I had a run-away horse carriage for two
hours with rates between 121 to 240 per hour.  I only picked up a few new
mults during that period, including the rare Zone 40. Continued the run
until around 1530Z, then switched back to S&P, picking up a few more mults
and rare Zone 35 until 1830. I had to stop then as we needed to head back
home around 6pm. So, it was another mad dash to take down and disassemble
the antennas and masts, pack everything up, and hit the road back to Cary
for some appointments on Monday morning…yeah, poor planning.

Final thoughts…this was one of my better efforts. A number of ATNO country
and zone contacts. I missed Zone 34 due to the huge pileup, and Zone 18 due
to the station not getting my call correct before I faded away. However, I
like to think I could have done much better if I had more time prior to the
contest and had stayed until the finish. With only the second yagi being
manually rotated for SE thru NW, there was a lot of running through the
house to the back deck for quick orientation changes. As of this writing, I
am still holding my position on the scoreboard and am number 2 behind a JA6
on 3830…subject to change… I have to believe that there are a lot of other
SOSB10 LP Unassisted efforts to be reported.

Rig: Backup Elecraft K3+ with Heil HC4 mic element

Antennas: Fixed to Europe 6-element 10M rope boom yagi (Buddipole parts) at
30 ft above ground (on 15 to 18 ft ASL sand dune); 4-element bent wire yagi
on BuddiHex frame at 30 ft, manual rotation; PAR EF-10 end fed half wave
vertical (used as low noise receive antenna) with top at 45 ft above
ground.

73,

Henry – K4TMC