Single-Op

Multi-Ops

Mobile / Rover

Tennessee

Out-of-State

STANDING TNQP RECORDS

Scores are up over 2003; indeed, this year's scores are exceeded only by our record year, 2002. LY3BA simply blew away the previous record score for a DX station (which he set himself in 2001). PA3ARM, SP4JWR, and UT5UIA also easily exceeded the old DX record.

Within the U.S., Bill K4LTA broke his own mobile record; and the Tennessee Mobileers soundly defeated Team Catnip's record in team competition. Another record was in participation. 74 entries were received, as opposed to 55 last year and 61 in the record year.

Several races were as tight as this year's U.S. Presidential election. 6 CW QSOs or two multipliers would have given Don, N4ZZ first place; one QSO was the difference between K4AMC and W4NZ for third place! Out-of-state competition is by state/province/country, but the races between 1st and 2nd, and between 3rd and 4th place here are also very tight. The competition in Ohio was tied, until W8KNO lost a QSO to a busted call.

A few notes about log checking...

All TQP logs are imported into a spreadsheet. This sheet is first sorted by emission mode, to assign 2 points to all phone QSOs and 3 to all CW QSOs. Next, it's resorted by callsign to check for dupes. Dupes are rescored to zero. K4TCG bonus points are also entered here. Then, the sheet is sorted by QTH and multipliers totaled. The spreadsheet is then exported to a text file, and everything sits aside until after the log deadline.

Once the deadline is reached, another sheet is prepared containing the callsign and QTH of each received entry. All logs are searched for each occurrence of “AA3VA”, and checked to ensure “Hamilton” was logged as his county. Notes are taken of those entrants who got it wrong. Those QSOs will be rescored as zero points, and if AA3VA was the entrant's only Hamilton County QSO the Hamilton multiplier will also be removed. This process is repeated for each other entrant.

Finally, each log is examined for probable “busted” calls. For example, one entrant claimed a QSO with “K4TLA/m” in Jefferson County. Again, notes are taken of each suspected busted call. I then check the log of the station I think he really worked. If a QSO is found (in this case, if K4LTA was in Jefferson County at the time and claimed a QSO with the operator who busted his call), that QSO will be rescored for zero points and the multiplier removed. (unless he worked someone else in the same multiplier) (only the operator who logged the busted call loses points – in this example K4LTA would keep the QSO.)

There were three common errors: