10/07/2002 | KC4AUF This years Sept.QSO Party contest was especially meaningfull to me because it included two of the students from my Wednesday night "Elmer Hour" class I teach,Dave Keifer N4DWK and Parke Slater N4KFT.They too are from the centeral Virginia area and reprsented themselves well as newcommers into the VHF/UHF arena. Both being HF contesters with the Centeral Virginia Contest Club brought with them a solid contesting background.
Even though the conditions were poor it was still a wonderful experience. I look forward to being given the oppertunity to test my skills against better and more experienced operators so as to give me inspieration to reach higher and do better with my own station. If it wern't for exercises like this in our hobby then it would only just be "talking".
My rotator indicator broke so as a last minute fix I tied a white rope to the front end of my 6meter boom. I placed orange highway cones on the ground below where the other end of the rope was hanging just above the ground. I marked the cones with degree markings to give me most of the headings to the NorthEast where 95% of all of my contacts would be comming from. "And that is what ham radio is all about, hi hi"
"See you on the bands" -- KC4AUF