The contest is held on the second full weekend of December. Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; runs through 2359 UTC Sunday (December 8-9, 2024) and is limited to the 10-meter band. That is actual from 7:00pm Eastern Friday night but after sunset so the bands will not be at their best. You may operate from either your home QTH or join us at Buddy’s (W7BSF) QTH in Oneida. Light refreshments/lunch will be available and a free will offering will be taken. We are working diligently to get a 5-element beam (possibly a second 3 element too!) up about 50-feet and will have an amplifier (600-1500 watts) which should help with our signals.

We will be on the air from 010:00 AM EST Saturday and Sunday until about 06:00 PM EST. There will be various radios and antennas set up for your use. We will also have ‘Elmers’ to assist you with the contest and HF radio basics plus logging of your contacts. No license = No problem as we can be the control operator for you as well.

The contest is geared for both individuals and clubs like ours. Individual logs will be submitted for each participant and by listing Big South Fork ARC in the submission all of our contacts will be pooled together for a club entry. This is a fun way of making contacts and helping the club at the same time.

For the exchange all you need to do is send your state (TN Tango November) to the other station you are contacting.

Scoring will be handled by KF4TY when the logs are entered. Each phone/SSB voice contact is worth 2 points and 4 points for each CW contact. Each state, Canadian province or DXCC (other country not US, Canada or Mexico) are considered multipliers. Each multiplier counts once on phone and once on CW which is why we need contacts for BOTH modes! The more states, provinces etc we contact as a club the bigger the multiplier will be. You will be competing on your own (using your own call sign) and being a member of BSFARC we will combine your contacts with other club members for a club entry as well.

Power categories are 5-watts or less is considered QRP, 100 watts or less is low power and more than 100 watts is considered high power (max 1500 watts). We will need to know what power level you used if we are submitting on your behalf.

Let us know if you used spotting pages (self-posted) or social media, live streaming etc as that puts you in a different category.

Each transmitter used for a contact is limited to one call sign. No passing the microphone around the room. Each operator is limited to a single call sign per contact. You cannot use the club’s call and yours for the same contact.

Operators must be eligible members in good standing of the club designated and must reside and operate in the club territory which is a 35-mile radius of grid square of Em76rm. We have verified everyone’s eligibility and submitted the list to ARRL. We are also defined as a medium-sized club as we have more than 10 members but fewer than 50.

Preference is for everyone to use a logging program, and we can help with a conversion from paper logging if needed. The following basic information is needed to submit for the contest:

o  Call sign used (Your call sign)

o  Frequency of the contact

o  Mode either PH (Phone/SSB) or CW

o  Date and UTC time. No local times please!

o  The other station’s call sign.

o  Their state or country

Link to a PDF formatted log page: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Contest%20Logs/16010log.pdf

 Logs are due within SEVEN (7) days after the event is over. Each entry must clearly indicate the club’s name (Big South Fork ARC) in the Cabrillo file header.

·      If you feel confident and have logged your contacts using a logging program you can either export them to a Cabrillo file (be sure to name Big South Fork ARC) for the CLUB line or you can also send an ADIF log to KF4TY and we will double check your file and convert it to the correct Cabrillo format and can even upload it for you. The other option is to send a picture of your paper log to KF4TY or text it to KF4TY and we will enter that information into a logging program and submit on your behalf. We can also send you an ADIF file for your records if requested.

·      As a club we need a minimum of three entries (3 operators/call signs) from eligible club members must be submitted. All club members have been submitted and will be recognized for the 10-meter contest. A club member’s score must be shown on the contest results web site to be counted for our club. Only that score shown in the results (or in subsequent corrections) will count for the Affiliated Club Competition.

The graphic below shows the results from our logbooks for the 2024 10-meter contest. The number of states or provinces is broken down by call sign area. Each year we do a lot better and having multiple logs submitted should help our overall score as a club. So, what did you learn this year?

Please read!! Before scrolling to find out how we did the scores are based on call signs and then aggregated into a club score. For example, when we used the club call sign W4BSF that call sign score was 8,568 with 92 QSOs. When we add up our scores as a club we ended up with 52,376 and placed 14th in our category which was a local club.

W4BSF members who used the club call were part of the multi-operator, single transmitter high-power category since we had a station running 200-watts that used the club call. Our score for W4BSF was 8,568 and was 48th in TN. Thanks to K4IDB, KF4TY, KI4NG, KQ4PCE, KC4ZIP, N4YLA and W7BSF for helping achieve that score.

KF4TY Bill scored 15,276 on his own and was part of the single operator, phone only high-power category (more than 100 watts) which placed him 42nd in TN overall. Within his category and only the state of TN he finished 3rd. There were only 3 entries, but it sounds better than saying last! Bill made 140 contacts and had a multiplier of 57.

KI4NG Stephen scored 7,246 on his own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed him 51st in TN overall. A 4th place in the state in his category was a great showing as there were 20 other operators that submitted logs. With 81 QSOs and a multiplier of 47 helped boost his overall score.

KQ4ZIP Jamie scored 5,776 on his own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed him 51st in TN overall. This was Jamie’s first contest, and he came in 6th in the state within his category!! Way to go.

W4IIC Charlie scored 5,776 on his own and was part of the single operator, CW low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed him 56th in TN overall. In his category Charlie finished 6th in the state of TN. With 54 contacts and a multiplier of 27 helped not only Charlie but our club as CW points count more.

KI4JAV Kelly scored 3,520 on her own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed her 64th in TN overall. Kelly had 44 QSOs on her own which was good enough for 12th in the state for her category. Kelly had a multiplier of 40 which helped her a lot.

K4IDB David scored 3,286 on his own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed him 65th in TN overall. With 54 QSOs and 31 multipliers it was enough for 13th in the state for his category. 

W4NRT Ricky scored 2,730 on his own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed him 51st in TN overall. Ricky may have only had 39 QSOs but his multiplier was 35 which earned him a 14th place in his category for the state of TN.

KJ4QFD Carol scored 286 on her own and was part of the single operator, phone only low-power category (100 watts or less) which placed her 75th in TN overall. Carol had almost as many multipliers at 11 boosting her QSO count of 14 to allow her to place 17th in her category for the state of TN