12/09/2003 | KN6N This was my first CW contest. It was real fun to be able to work everyone. I have never heard so many CW stations on 160 meters before.

I was suprised to be able to work a stations as far as Colorado.

My setup here is a dipole antenna that is laid on top of the roof of my house. It is about 75 feet long. 5 feet of the wire drapes over the edge of the roof. A ladder line is connected to the center of this antenna and leads down to a window. The ladder line connects to a tuner that connects to a Yaesu FT-920. For all of the contacts I used around 10-12 watts of power.

With such a less than ideal setup, I was surprised to be able to make the contacts that I made. Next year I will have a better setup.

For the last 9 months I have been working on getting my CW speed up. It really helped with this contest.

I would like to say thank you to all the other contesters and the ARRL for making this contest possible. -- KN6N