[UK-CONTEST] Ode to WPX

[Gerard Lynch]

I don't know what it is about contests that makes me feel the need to write poetry.  Maybe its the sleep deprivation, or maybe I just need serious help?  Anyway, here is the Ode to WPX.

ODE TO WPX

On that contest Sunday evening, it was getting rather late,
The serial number being sent was three nine seven eight.
The mults were always even, never did much to the score,
So we quaked to hear our rivals sending four oh seven four.

Though twenty was wide open, fifteen and ten were dead,
And forty was too noisy, and 'twas long past 20Z,
And 'PZA was worn out, and so was 'NKB,
And 'SKN was willing but was useless on the key.

And the rest of us had wrecked ourselves from setting up the gear,
And if we're straight we'd had too much of whiskey and of beer.
100 Qs was one big ask with not four hours to go - 
We'd long since picked the bands right clean, and felt so very low.

But then old 'OBO stood up, and sat down at the rig.
He opened up a flask of rum, and took a long drawn swig.
He found at a gap .030, and beamed to 315,
His CQ TEST, like Lazarus, seemed to wake the band alive.

For a while he ran the West Coast at 200 Qs an hour,
And then he worked some JA boys who were using modest power.
He knew a path that none else knew to Pacific mults so rare,
By beaming o'er Antarctica and up the derriere.

We saw new hope dawn once again, with just an hour to go,
For he sent out four three seven five, and they four three nine oh.
They were slugging it on eighty, working Eu for two points,
But he was right to stay on 14 Megs, we could feel it in our joints.

The man had held us spellbound, but it wasn't meant to be,
For half an hour before the end there came a CME.
Once more that old deceiver Sol had proven a false friend,
For we lost by 7 QSOs and 2 mults at the end.

73

Gerry G0RTN
Vanity Page at http://www.gerrylynch.co.uk