[HBQRP] 1DIJ Follow-up

[Piatt, Darwin]

Here is one report from one other participant. And my reply..
Good showing folks.. Next year, July 10 will be the date (I think) 

Darwin (Dar) Piatt - W9HZC
Midwest HomeBrewer's and QRP Group
http://www.qsl.net/hbqrp 


-----Original Message-----
From: Piatt, Darwin 
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 8:39 AM
To: 'kellymcc at earthlink.net'; w1rex at megalink.net
Cc: DOUG PHILLIPS; Mike Malone
Subject: RE: 'STUFF'

Greetings from Nebraska;
Well, we, as well, had great fun.
I will update our site later this week and have pictures. We managed to
get 6 stations and 8 operators and one visitor. (my spouse)
Thanks to Rex and to Dale from Hamgadgets.com plus a couple of old
duplicate kits from me, 6 folks took home a prize. Thanks Rex, those
pads look really cool. And to Dale N0XAS, also Thanks, the recipients of
the Pico keyer and the keying adaptor were delighted.
We operated until late afternoon, just long enough to receive a phone
call from the west coast asking where we were on the bands.
We didn't make a lot of contacts, but we had a heck of a lot of fun and
are ready to do it again next year..
Thanks everybody and 73's from NE......

Darwin (Dar) Piatt - W9HZC
Midwest HomeBrewer's and QRP Group
http://www.qsl.net/hbqrp 


-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly E. McClelland [mailto:kellymcc at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 8:10 PM
To: w1rex at megalink.net
Cc: DOUG PHILLIPS; Mike Malone; Piatt, Darwin
Subject: Re: 'STUFF'

Con Men,

GatorCon09 reporting: We had a good time and a turnout of 17 hams for 
our first ever QRP "Con" event despite only 2 weeks planning and 
promoting time!  I was very pleased that so many came out on short 
notice, some from 2 hrs away even. While setting up we had deer, fox 
squirrels, sand hill cranes, a six inch wide spider, and even a couple 
armadillos racing across the area where we were operating. Pretty wild
time!

The wx was good, no rain and fairly cool with no wind until 6PM when the

storm finally arrived.  Don't know how condx were in your areas, but the

bands were really lousy for us. We heard a few contest stations from the

IARU Reg 1 HF contest, but the qso count for 9 rigs was probably less 
than 20 combined for 5 hrs of off and on operating. Signals where very 
down in the noise and propagation was flat. Scraped up a couple qso's on

30m but never heard any of the rest of you despite lots of listening and

some CQ's from the group.

I'll post a few pictures after I get caught up and get a good nite's 
rest. I may get a bit of operating in Sunday afternoon to try to catch a

few SKCC gang as the Weekend Sprint theme this month is QRP.

Rex, the prizee were a big hit. One winner had never built a kit before 
and grinned ear to ear when he got a chance to try his hand at the 
Sudden Storm receiver.

We're looking at options for the future, including some camping and 
gator wrestling. Next year we'll have some free gator jerky and more 
Gatorade.

73,
Kelly K4UPG and the Central Florida QRP Group