[NLRS] Road trip, Hamfest, and At The Farm

[Dave Aho]

To everyone involved *L*,
   
    Thanks to all at the farm.  It was my second time
contesting out there.  Wonderful.  I had a very
involved, activity packed weekend.  First off, I only
got about 4 hours sleep Thursday night after work,
then I ended up taking a trip to the cities on Friday
afternoon to pick up an amp rack from W9FZ.  Darrell,
KB9LVK and I got back from this errand at about
10:30pm (had to stop at my shop and do a bit of
welding on the roller base of the cabinet as I was not
going to worry about finding a loose screw.  The base
is NOT going anywhere now...hihi).  I subsequently got
2 hours of sleep Friday night as I could not fall
asleep and got up at 4am (I usually go to bed at 6am
due to work), so I could go to the MN Hamfest to help
with the NLRS table.  Got the TS-120S looked at and
found out the recieve is very low and have an idea on
where to look now for the problems.  KB9PJL and I got
back to Eau Claire sometime about 5pm I think.  I
"napped" until about midnight thirty and went out to
the farm for the end of the contest.  I got out there
around 1-2am just as John was heading to bed.  I
worked a bit of 80 meters (If I remember right) until
it died a bit, and noticed that 20 meters was getting
a bit of a spotting list, so I hiked up to the 20
meter "house", got the lowdown on the antennas and
such, and essentially proceeded to work 20 up until
the end of the contest.  minus a few small tech
problems mainly attributed to my unfamiliarity with
the equipment and computer logging/macros on the
keyboard etc...(Thanks for the "crash course"
Dave...it sure helped....now to remember it all til
next time.  hihi), the 20 meter stations (with KB9LVK
for the final 4 or so hours) went without a hitch til
the end of the contest.  Worry for "PLOWING" my way
through the 10 meter recievers with the fixed 4X4
stack to the SE.  It seemed like that was the only
stack that gave that problem.  If I turned the other
beams down to the caribbean for that occasional
contact, we never had the bleedthrough apparently. 
Anhow, I had a few "TOUGH" contacts on the band.  And
even though the time spent (30-45 minutes each) trying
to get the multipliers, was possibly not as efficient,
it was satisfying to get the contacts in the end.  For
as little sleep as I got this weekend, it was 
jamb-packed and fun filled and would do it
again...though preferably with more sleep.  And as an
aside, if I would have known Jackie had car problems,
I would have swung by Saturday on the way back from
the fest and brought you to the farm.  I hope the car
is fixed soon and with not too large of a bill.  I can
sympathise...I just finally got my vehicle on the
road.  Hope to catch you on 10 and all the others
sometime.  Thanks again to everyone....W9FZ, eveyone
at hamfest, and last but not least, to all at the farm
for such a good weekend.



=====
73, and all that jazz,


                 Dave...N9TTX


Always remember:  "It could be worse.....it could be raining."
                             Marty Feldman from "Young Frankenstein"

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