[NLRS] CW practice

[Chris Cox]

Thanks for the prod, Jon.

I've never tried the SS before (not an HF guy, doncha know!).

Anyway, my son had a hockey practice yesterday evening so I decided to 
pack the FT817 in the van, along with about 30 feet of pvc covered wire, a 
cheap CB-type ATU, and the paddles, and play for an hour or so.

I was very pleased with the results, working 22qs from the portable 
location with the wire only about 6 feet above the ground - on a mix of
14 and 21MHz.

When I got home I played for another 20 minutes and increased the QSO 
count to 32.  A couple more hours total today to get the count up to 81, 
with the last Q being with an ex NLRS member, Todd K0TO who's now living 
in Idaho.  I spent the last 90 minutes of the contest on 7MHz, adding the 
final 29 Q's.  That's more than I've ever worked on 40 metres in my whole 
ham career!

I haven't added up the section count yet, but it was very good fun and, as 
you suggested, CW practice.

Thanks again for the nudge.  Oh, best DX was probably WP2Z on 20m 
yesterday evening for the Virgin Islands section.  Didn't work KHanything 
or KL7, although I did hear on KL7 on 20m yesterday evening.

I couldn't cut through the pile up, choosing to run all of the contacts at 
the 5 watt power level.  It's been many years since I've done very much at 
all on QRP (except on 10GHz and with the dish's gain that hardly qualifies 
as QRP!!!).

Hope you all had fun who chose to play.

-- 
73  Chris Cox  N0UK, G4JEC, ex-AB0CN, ex-G8PTC  RNARS #1157  EN34jv

chrisc@Chris.Org        Ping Jockey's do it until they HEAR the burn...
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