WOW is all I can say. I've been contesting since the my SS of 1958 but
never a group effort other than FD. K2UFT asked me if I would be
interested and passed my name to Rick. I was very interested although I
had commitments for Sunday.
Nevertheless, Rick invited me to come and initially work with K4BAI on
15M. This is a double win as I always have admired John and his
courteous operating. I ran into John at Dayton and asked him if he
screwed up or something to have to work with me!
Anyway, I had no idea what I was in store for. I was told to arrive by
11:30 Friday IF I wanted BBQ which I did. I was met by Rick and since I
had never been to his place was given the grand tour as if I had been
the long lost hired gun they were looking for. They were soon to find
out this was not the case. hi hi I was mildly impressed with NQ4I's
setup - yeah right. By the time my jaw quit dragging the ground, K4BAI
had arrived and along with amazing web dude, Bobby, KF4GTA, we were off
to Southern BBQ. That in itself would have been worth the 70 mile trip
to Griffin from Roswell.
When we returned and finished moving a few last minute things around, we
were given a "practice" version of WIN-TEST to play with for the
afternoon. Rick and Bobby were still doing network kinds of things but
not with a great deal of stress as the system had been "cured" before
lunch with a big sigh of relief. I was to be John's MULT guy for the
contest so we each made a few contacts around the world on what would
appear to be a dead band. We also experimented with the control box
which prevents two stations operating on the same band at the same
time. Red lights/yellow lights - whew, this is a lot to learn but John
and Rick were patient with me.
One thing was for sure- the new WIN-TEST software was looking very good
and almost the same as CT - well, only better in the Windows
environment. As the afternoon wore on, others started arriving.
Charles NF4A from Panama City, Dick K4UFT, Lee WI4R, and Jim VE7ZO.
Gary N5BI the 80M guru would arrive more toward the start time.
Rick and Lee made a food run and on their return, I realized this was
one professional operation as we unloaded many grocery bags for the
weekend. This was to be confirmed by 7PM when Rick served up a full
meal of lasagna and all the trimmings. Coolers of drinks were readily
at hand all weekend and meals on Saturday were outstanding as well,
starting with a Full English breakfast as they call it there without the
fish, and well no grits but that's not Full English either! Anyway, you
had to be there to enjoy this feast.
Back to the contest, I pretty much watched John work a hundred or so
the first hour on that so called dead 15M band. I contributed a very
few MULTS with the red/yellow light thing but he'd have gotten these
before the evening was out anyway! With Win-Test, I was able to see the
results of all the other positions, checking charts/graphs/etc. By the
end of the first hour NQ4I was at something like 396 Qs. Rick seemed
pleased. I think we hit a million points by 10 or 11 PM and life was
good. Bobby would jump on any little setup issue such as "what screen
is it that shows hand off frequencies of the other positions?" that sort
of thing. Soon Lee was on 160M dredging out a few Qs and Gary was
keeping things running on 80M. Rick was everywhere - operating some but
serving the other ops snacks and drinks/etc. There was not a strong
opening to EU on about any band although 20 and 15 did see some nice
action early, and Jim (ZO) could work anywhere on 40M. Gosh, he is
impressive!
15M shut down pretty much around midnight so John and I went to bed. I
had been pulled off 15M somewhere in there to run the 10M CQ machine and
did get a very few Qs Friday evening. By Saturday noon, we had less
than 50 Qs on 10M. I was able to work some 40M while Jim caught a nap
during the day pulling a Q every 2 minutes or so from the eastern US. I
was surprised that Rick let me touch that precious station but I was
given a very warm welcome and treated as if I could run 125 Qs per hour
although I've rarely done that in 49 years of contesting from my place,
even for the 15 minute block! I was able to be there and contribute
when 10M did open up even to EU around late afternoon and before I left
that night, we had bagged 275 Qs on 10M which gave out around 9PM. At
one point, VE7ZO came in to help me and thank goodness he did as I had
exceeded my capacity to handle all the calls at one point. He on the
other hand, was easily working 2 freqs - one CQing and the other picking
off spots as quick as they came up on the network - WOW! He gave me
many pointers for later use while he was doing all this - simply
amazing. :)
Sadly, I needed to leave late Saturday night but with a great
appreciation for the outstanding job Rick does putting on this event.
As I said, you never could have guessed that this was my first time with
them as they treated me as if I had been an old hand there. The setup,
stations, antennas, food, and hospitality are first rate and a beauty to
behold. I can't imagine there are any improvements that could make this
a more enjoyable experience. If you ever get a chance to even visit
them during a contest, do so. I'm sure you will be as welcomed as I was.
Oh yeah, one last thing - being a QRP contester, I'll have to admit that
all that power can be a heady experience and as they say "size matters"!!
Jim/W4QO
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