07/15/2003 | KG6RJ I had actually forgotten about the contest until late Friday evening. I had spent the day Friday scavenging parts from my old R5 vertical to repair a bad trap on a second-hand R7 and the subsequent tuning. While checking the SWR, I heard another station testing for the contest. If I hadn't heard him, I would have missed it entirely.

When I started to work the contest on Saturday around 9AM PST, I wasn't sure if the propagation conditions were bad or if I had just done a bad job fixing the R7! I was copying stations in North America only. By early evening, conditions improved somewhat and I managed to log some stations in Europe, South America and the Caribbean. Most of my contacts were on 15 and 20 meters with a handful of stateside QSOs on 10 and 40.

I would have liked better propagation to give the R7 a real work out but still had a lot of fun. All in all it was a good experience and a chance to exercise the station. Thanks to all the stations I contacted. -- KG6RJ