02/02/2004 | N3DB Lots of fun & a few surprises not too common during the January Contest for a 6m only station. Meteor scatter condx were fairly poor, but tropo was fairly good at times. Es to VP9, C6A & FL Saturday evening. Two new grids- WN2R in FM14 & K6LMN/C6A in FL06, who was operating while driving down a coastal road in the Bahamas. Nicest surprise was a call by PY1DGV while I was cq cw toward the Gulf during the Es. He had just built a 6m dipole from a junked tribander & told me I was his first DX QSO on 50MHz. Afterward I worked 2 other PYs & 2 LUs during an approximately 1 hour Es + TEP opening, which yielded GG87, GG66, GF05 & FF96 as multipliers. Conditions were good to South America but few stations were QRV that evening. A nice warm-up for the June contest from W3DOG in FM28.
73 -- N3DB