12/12/2007 | KE5RJJ My 16 yr old son had a good time this weekend. He was licensed about three weeks ago and I told him to give the contest a try. He used 100 watts into an EDZ that we finished and hung as the contest began. He worked a band opening from 6-10 pm Friday night. He worked every state due east of our QTH in Texas in short order with Ohio being the most northerly station. Finished up Friday with just over a 100 QSOs. Saturday the band was dead save for a a few big guns in Alabama and Georgia. The band opened up again from 6-10 pm on Saturday with conditions being slightly poorer. He worked a handful of stations to the east that he hadn't heard the night before and then noticed some northerly stations that were down in the noise off the side of the antenna. He went out, untied the antenna, swung it 90 degrees and managed to work up into the Dakotas, MN, and WI. All in all he had a good time and managed 181 QSOs with 27 states and Mexico. Strangely enough, that didn't include Texas or New Mexico. While everybody on the band was saying that it seemed like there were three Texas stations on every frequency, he didn't even hear a murmur from any stations in our own state... -- KB8YHV