[Azham] FYBO2005 Prolog from NQ7RP: or was that KQ7RP?

[Mike Baker]

Hello gang,
	Well, I have had a few days to let the dust settle and recouped while
reading the happening of others in the FYBO.  Some of you are lot tougher
than I am with regard to the tolerance for the temp.  If it gets below 50F
my fingers don't work the key. In fact with day time temps in the mid 60's,
my fingers didn't want to cooperate very well at times.
	To start with, I was pooped as I had been running all over the place
getting the last minute details taken care of on Friday and was up until
about 1am. Got up at 5:30am and finished packing the truck and the cooler.
Arrived at Thunderbird Park about 8:30am and to my surprise I met Ed Long,
WA4SWJ, who decided to drop in and give us a hand at set up and operations.
Very glad to have the help. About 9:30 we were ready to get on the air with
the trap vertical for 20,15,10 and the twisted pair inverted vee for 40 and
15. I set up my Icom 703+ using the vertical and Ed set his Icom 718 up on
the vee.
20 meters was the hot ticket.  Things seemed to be going well. Brian Short
K7ON arrived and joined in the fray for a few quick contacts. Life was good.
Mike W9UQB and Scotty W7SW dropped in to say Hi as did my Wife Paulett N7XYN
and another friend Carla KD7JGJ. However, as Scotty arrived he asked if we
knew we were using the wrong call?!  NO! WE DIDN'T DO THAT DID WE?  YEP.  We
were sending KQ7RP instead of NQ7RP.  Even the programmable keyers were
programmed wrong!  OH SH--!  Well, can't do much now except change calls to
NQ7RP and keep on digging. (I have since looked up KQ7RP and contacted that
radio clubs trustee to check if they were on that weekend and there was no
operation from them;)  IF YOU WORKED KQ7RP AND YOU SUBMIT A LOG YOU WILL BE
GIVEN CREDIT FOR CONTACT WITH NQ7RP*** UNLESS YOU WORKED BOTH IN WHICH CASE
YOU ONLY CAN RECEIVE CREDIT FOR ONE. Next year I won't be trying to get
everything working at the last minute and I will have the CORRECT call in
the keyer and hopefully a good nights sleep before hand.
	Including the mixed up call stations worked, 1 station was worked on SSB
and 60 on CW with only 1 station worked on 4 bands 40,20,15 & 10 and that
was Scotty W7SW and he was mobile! Never did get the laptop to work as the
screen was totally awash and unreadable in the sun, had enough batteries to
light up half of Phoenix and never did have to change out cells. Brian and I
split up all the CW activity about equally and for all intent, 15 was too
quiet and 40 was fill of RTTY. SSB was impossible on 40 due to the rag
chewers and on both 20 and 40 meters there were two QSO parties in progress
which made them worthless as well. Not a single FYBO op to be found on SSB
except 1 guy on 15 meters.
	Did I have fun?  OH YEAA!  Can we do this again next month?  Maybe a QRP
day in the Field every month or every other month on a Saturday for 8 Hours?
OK so I had a good time and want to do it again.
	I talked to John Stevens and he said he has about 15 to 20 logs already
submitted so don't forget to send in your logs.
	I have a very nice (Suitable for Framing) certificate for the winners and a
certificate for all who participated. If you want to be a big help, include
a stamp in your envelope for return postage of your certificate. After all,
we are not a charity and do most of this as volunteers to contribute to the
fun of the hobby but something as small as a stamp times the number of logs
submitted is a big help.
	I hope every one had as much fun as I did and look forward to doing this
again. The totals will be forthcoming.

Mike Baker  K7DD
k7ddmjb at qwest.net