The Tennessee QSO Party (TQP) is an annual event sponsored by the Tennessee Contest Group (TCG), held on a Sunday of Labor Day weekend in September. Its purpose is to let operators worldwide contact Tennessee amateurs in all of the state's counties, in pursuit of awards such as Worked All States and the USA Counties Award. Each year tens of thousands of QSOs occur between Tennessee hams and the rest of the world, and the distinctive engraved plaques awarded to category winners are hand-made in the woodworking shop of Mark, K0EJ.
Again this year, Mark offered us the use of his Mowbray Mountain contest station to enter as a multi-operator, multi-transmitter, high-power station. Making it extra special, he secured TCG approval to use the club call K4TCG — the party's only designated bonus station, whose QSOs are worth 100 points each rather than the usual 3. As you might imagine, we were very popular! The bonus station exists to generate interest and stimulate activity across as many bands and modes as possible.
We set up three stations. Station 1 was Mark's FlexRadio 6600M with two amps, configured SO2R (single operator, two radios) so we could work 15M while watching 10M, feeding the 3-high stack of 6-element 10M yagis and the 2-high stack of 5-element 15M yagis. Station 2 was Ted's FlexRadio 6600M plus an amp, mainly covering 20M CW and SSB into the pair of 5-element 20M yagis. Station 3 was Ted's Elecraft K3, barefoot at 100 watts in the kitchen, covering 40M early and later 80M and 160M CW into a 40m rotatable dipole and a 160m inverted-L.
Our intrepid operating team was Mark K0EJ, Gary K4VIG, Billy KE4CMA, Clayton KJ4YLR, Karen KX4KM, Ted W4NZ, Bill W4XK, Corey W4ZHA, and Bryan W5MX — with Paul WA4AA dropping by for moral support. Bryan and Clayton drove down from Kentucky just to help us operate.
Band & Mode Summary
| Band | CW QSOs | Phone QSOs | Mults |
|---|---|---|---|
| 160m | 23 | — | 17 |
| 80m | 134 | 43 | 56 |
| 40m | 227 | 339 | 97 |
| 20m | 247 | 432 | 70 |
| 15m | 101 | 28 | 47 |
| 10m | 30 | 71 | 26 |
| 2m | — | 2 | 2 |
| Totals | 762 | 915 | 315 |
1,677 QSOs (762 CW / 915 phone) · 315 multipliers · K4TCG bonus station
That was a big jump over the previous year's 1,324,440. A few interesting facts: we worked 1,130 unique stations, 14 DXCC entities, 50 Tennessee counties, 48 states (yes, we missed Alaska and Hawaii), and 6 Canadian provinces.
| Tennessee | 50 counties |
| U.S. states | 48 — missed AK, HI |
| Canada & DX | 6 provinces, 14 DXCC entities |
| Unique stations | 1,130 |
K0EJ · K4VIG · KE4CMA · KJ4YLR · KX4KM · W4NZ · W4XK · W4ZHA · W5MX
Photo highlights: Corey W4ZHA and Bill W4XK at the stations, Mark K0EJ at Station 3, and the antenna towers on Mowbray Mountain. See the full photo gallery →
Recent TQP Scores
- 20241,584,765 pts · K4TCG bonus station
- 20231,324,440 pts
TVDXA's club entry, operated from K0EJ's Mowbray Mountain station.
About the Tennessee QSO Party
The TQP is held on a Sunday in September and is sponsored by the Tennessee Contest Group (TCG). See the TVDXA TQP event page or visit tnqp.org.