06/12/2006 | KC0RAD WOW what an opening!!!! First off, my husband and I just moved into our new house last November and we wanted to put up a tower, you surely cant dig a hole when ground is frozen. So I have to thank all the people who made it possible that I even was able to be in this contest. N0TTW (my husband) for your blood, sweat and tears (and not being afraid of heights) through the whole building process of the radio shack to digging the tower hole, I Love You!!! A big Thank You to KC0AKJ (Jay) for having a tower available and for use of his equipment to get it all together!!! Also a big Thank You to KC0HLN (Jerry) for helping with getting the tower up. Every thing was up and running (finally) on Wednesday before the contest. I even made some 6m contacts on Thursday before the contest (all 37 of them). Everything seemed to be up and running..

Then Murphy reared his ugly little head before the contest started. First thing was the weather, temperatures were in the mid 50s during the contest and the heater wasnt installed because of the 80s weve been having the last couple of weeks.

Then came the amplifiers for 2m and 440. The 2m amp decided it didnt want to play, so that was pulled. The 440 amp didnt like my antenna and took its electrons home (It was folding back on a 1.6:1 reading)

Next, the antennas became flaky on the day of the contest. The 1.2 Ghz was showing an SWR of 2.5:1, the 222 antenna was jumping from a 1.5 to a 8 on the meter and my 6m beam would jump its SWR up when I pointed East to South (And thats where all the station where calling from).

Ok, with that all said I will say again WOW what an opening!!! So glad I was able to participate this weekend. I had a great time, from my EN32 location I worked 67 different grids with a total of 119 contacts. My farthest contacts were DN15 (a Rover station) EL29 and FN64 not bad for a 3 element 6 meter antenna. I have 5 bands to work with (6m, 2m, 222, 432 and 1.2 GHZ) on 2 radios (YAESU FT-920 & FT-736R). I wasnt able to get anyone on 1.2 Ghz so please everyone who has this band, call me at the next contest Im on!!!!!

This is my 3rd year in participating in this contest and if my scores keep climbing like they have it might make some of you a little nervous 2004 693, 2005 1,036 & 2006 10,000 plus!!!!

Or maybe even scare K2DRH!!! HIHI

So keep an ear open for me everyone and watch me climb up the leader board!!!!

Thanks everyone for your contacts and new grids I got this contest. Cant wait for the next contest already!!!!

KC0RAD (Bonnie) -- KC0RAD