TopBand: K5NA/M Stew Perry

[Richard L. King]

Greetings from South Florida.

My attempt to operate mobile in the Stew Perry contest was a complete bust.
I was able to hear many,many stations but none seemed to hear me. I could
never even get a "?" sent back from any station when I called. 

My score is 0 (zero) QSOs for 0 (zero) points for 5 (five) hours of on
time. I operated for about 3 (three) hours starting just before sunset and
about 2 (two) hours before sunrise, operating from EM60, EM70, and EM80. I
only used one call in my calling, K5NA/M, and I had planned to change
callsigns after I had made a QSO and then changed grids. But the first QSO
never came.

Obviously my junk-box antenna using a tuner just couldn't do the job. The
funny thing is that I seemed to be hearing very well. I could usually hear
both sides of any QSO that I tuned across. However, I didn't hear any DX,
so the antenna wasn't THAT great on receive.

My XYL, Susan - K5DU, says that I have invented the world's first beverage
antenna for mobile stations. Below is a list of stations (from memory) that
I heard with loud signals and called:

N4OGW, W4MYA, K8UM, N4AR, N4RJ, KQ2M, K2TOP, W2BC, K1LT, K1VW, W1WAI, K6SE,
VE6SV, N8EA, K8MK, K1KY, K3SV, W4WA, N5DX, WD4JRA, N4OO, N9FH, WF2W, W8LRL,
N4TO, W1FJ, KE9I, KC7V, W7GG, N2IC, and many others that I have already
forgotten. I would have been better off if I had taken a stealth dipole and
operated from the motel in Tallahassee instead.

Oh well, it was worth a try.

73, Richard

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com