The SC QSO Party has come and gone and I had an exceptional time. This year was my first participating and I operated as a rover/mobile station with my friend Dwayne, N4LDL.

We operated with his callsign since it was a little shorter than mine — and we used his mobile rig, a Kenwood 480 at 200 watts into a Tarheel antenna. Dwayne did the driving while I did the calling and logging. He did some radio work as well once we parked. We logged with N1MM on my laptop, which we powered with a small inverter.

All in all, we operated from five counties — Aiken, Edgefield, Saluda, Greenwood and Lexington — for a total of 77 QSOs using SSB and CW (straight key mobile FTW!). 15 meters never opened up for us, but 40 stayed lively throughout the day and we saw some decent action on 20 meters. Farthest contact was Slovak Republic and we worked OM2VL on both voice and code. We also worked my good friend (and QSO party organizer) Todd, KN4QD on both modes.

We managed to work a handful of other SC counties, including some rare ones thanks to the mobile work of my good friend Ronnie, W4RWL (my mobile partner’s twin brother). Ronnie and his wife N4TAL, roved the western portion of the state, and slightly beat us on the QSO count.

We probably could have scored more contacts but we broke off the pursuit around 7 p.m. and headed home. Overall I was very happy with the effort and both Dwayne and I had a great time. I look forward to working this party again next year!

(My apologies for the stunted, brief nature of this post. I’m composing it on my phone as my wife and I are traveling in Florida this week.)