This is the fourth year a group from our Tennessee Valley DX Association has traveled from the Chattanooga area to Wythe County to operate the VAQP. We set up field-day style at a hunting lodge near Speedwell.

There were 3 transmitters(K3s, K3, TS590s) on the air manned by 8 operators for the full contest period. Antennas consisted of one G5RV, a 20M EDZ, a 40M EDZ and a 160m inverted-L with one raised radial. The zepps were fed through tuners for multiband operation. All antennas were at a good height of 40 to 60 feet between some large trees. With competition from the Russian DX Contest and the LA QSO Party we hoped that there would be a good level of activity as these contests would also draw participants. But for whatever reason activity seemed to be very lite. Propagation on the lower bands seemed ok. We did work a KL7 on 160M with only 100w before the contest. The skip on 20m was very long. Running low power we were still spotted by skimmers all over Europe! Even with only 3 transmitters it was often tough to find any activity on ssb or cw. There were times when CQ’s went unanswered for several minutes. We felt that this contest would have been much more enjoyable if it were reduced to one 12 or 14-hour day. In any case, good food, good fellowship and playing radio in the woods for a couple of days was still fun and enjoyed by everyone. We thank you for all the QSO’s.

Call: K4VIG
Operator(s): KØEJ K3JWI K4VIG KE4CMA W4NZ W4XK WA4AA WB4ZBI
Station: K4VIG

Class: M/MFixed LP
QTH: Wythe County
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Location: In State/Province

Band	CW Qs	Ph Qs	Dig Qs
160:	15	7
80:	131	210
40:	180	357
20:	102	11
15:
10:
6:
2:
UHF:
Total:	428	585	0	Mults	150	Total Score	217,350