All 95 Counties Expected To Be Active As Tennessee Volunteers For 2010 State QSO Party Duties

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted August 30, 2010

After a 2009 contest that rewrote a big chunk of the record book, the Tennessee QSO Party is back for 2010 with organizers confident that they can put every single county from the Volunteer State on the air.

"ALL 95 Counties will be active!" proclaimed Tennessee QSO Party organizer Julius Fazekas N2WN, as three years in a row, the final tally has been 94 of 95 Tennessee counties active for the contest.

"Also, we'd like to encourage any young contesters (18 years old and under, in or out of state) to try to win the Youth Plaque."

Whether you can get a sweep of the Volunteer State counties would certainly depend on mobile activity, and as usual, this contest has attracted a bunch of mobiles, as a dozen different operations have been announced.

"I'll be running QRP mobile for four counties at the very start of the contest (CLAI, UNIO, KNOX and GRAI) as N4Q. It will be your only shot at CLAI," Fazekas said, doing his part to activate four counties.

25 counties are on the schedule for N4ZZ's CW only mobile entry plan, the most of any of the announced operations so far.

W4NZ/m has 22 counties on the chalkboard, starting in Polk County, which was the one county that was not activated in 2009, an area along the Appalachian Mountains in the far southeast of Tennessee.

In 2008, the one county that wasn't activated was Cannon County, which is almost dead square in the center of the state. Cannon County is on the announced routes of both W4NZ/m and W4AN/m.

Back in 2007, the only county not on the air was Lawrence County, along the southern border with Alabama. At least two mobiles will be going through Lawrence County this year, W4OQG/m and N4ZZ/m.

The TNQP is only a nine hour contest which begins at 1800z on Sunday September 5 and goes until 0300z on Monday 6 September.

The 2009 TNQP saw new records in five of the 17 different categories, led by a familiar out-of-state high power winner, Bob Harder W0BH, from Kansas.

Harder finished with 204 net contacts and 132 multipliers, making 167 of his contacts on CW.

The Tennessee SO High Power champ in 2009 was Bob Edmonson N4VV. He powered his Greene County station to 420 QSO's - all on CW for a final score of 224,380 points.

One other note about the TNQP is that digital contacts are also allowed. Organizers hope the bonus station K4TCG (@K4BP) will have not only dedicated CW and SSB operations, but possibly a dedicated Digital station as well.

"It doesn't look like 10 or 15 will be a real factor again this year, but we will watch, who knows?" Fazekas told radio-sport.net. "Keep in mind we do things a little different and multipliers count by band. We do use 160 as well, and you can count on several members playing there."

The Tennessee QSO Party runs from 1800z Sunday September 5 until 0300z Monday September 6.