Hey Gang,
My FYBO really started Friday night when I heard Joe, AB7TT calling CQ
from his tent up at 7,000 feet in the Arizona mountains. He was already
freezing to death and the contest hadn't even started, but he was
sending a 599 report into Austin with no problem. I accused him of
being able to transmit "line-of-sight" from that lofty location across
west Texas right into Austin.
On Saturday, I could only work a couple of hours here and there, but
managed about 18 contacts and snagged 5 (if you count the displaced N4BP
roosting in a tower somewhere in Florida) of that desert insect club out
in Arizona and New Mexico. I spent a lot of time trying out three
different antennas for 20 meters so instead of piling up contacts I was
fumbling with antenna wires, but had great fun and learned a lot. I
caught Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico on the delta loop, Connecticut
and Virginnia on the OFC dipole and Florida and Minnesota on the
ground-mounted vertical. The SuperTee antenna tuner loads them all.
At one point I worried (needlessly) about my point multiplier and opened
the sliding glass door next to my operating station and got the temp to
drop into the low 70's. These winter contests in Texas can be tough!
Only worked the CQC contest on Sunday for about an hour, but snagged
Jim, AL7FS as my first contact on my first call to him. Boy, that guy
has good ears!!! I was weak, but he only had to ask for one repeat.
Everything else was gravy after that. One of the loudest signals I
worked was a 3 watt mobile rig, unfortunately, I don't have the call
here at my office, but it was one mighty fine signal. Also heard lots
of 1 watt signals that were real "boomers". Wonder what those QRO ops
thought? My other amusing experience during the contest was that my
only QRO contact in Maryland got his signal clobbered by some really
potent QRPer's. I completely lost him to QRM and he was running a 100
watts. I loved it!!! You QRPer's can clobber my QRO contacts any day.
My next goal is to get more than an hour and a half at a single sitting
to see if I could "run" a few stations from the same frequency. Learned
a lot just listening to some of the real pro QRPer's out there. What
fun. This time around I just searched and pounced and only missed a
few, but it seems to take more time and the contacts/hour suffers a bit.
A hearty thanks to the AZ and CO clubs for sponsoring great fun.
Looking forward to it for next year.
See you during the next contest.
Gary, KJ5VW
[
QRP-L Archive |
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000
]