06/28/2004 | N6NKO/9 After visiting three different FD sites in Southeastern Wisconsin in the afternoon, it was my chance to work the contest after feeding the family dinner out. So I put the home station backup battery (72 A/H AGM) into the back of my Jeep to run my 706MKIIG (to not kill the vehicle battery) and proceeded to my spot in Brookfield, WI. This little park is located on the divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds. So, I had from 5:45 pm to 10:00 pm to work the contest as the park closed at 10:00pm. The time span was long enough after the driving that I did earlier but I had fun and that was the key to the whole thing. 15 meters was good pickings and had fun working grayline when the sun was going down. 20 meters was an audio wasteland - tight filters and even tighter ears were needed to work here. Of course at night 40 meters was a contest between hams and international broadcast and based on the cacaphony between the broadcast stations, the broadcast stations were winning. About the only detractors that I found to the whole experience were two: Self-proclaimed "band-edge" cops who say that people are out of band (and they aren't) and also not identifying themselves properly and people who had their compressors set to "full burn". One positive aspect to the contest was hearing the people who do not have much "seat time" behind a mic. Yes, they may not have the "swing" down of the exchange but hearing other stations walk them through the exchange to get it right or help them out was so reassuring and it was a pleasure to help out the learners as well. I found that even though using the proper phonetics is the "correct" way to do the process, sometimes using something original makes you stand out from the crowd such as my siging "N 6 Never Kill Owls" on a difficult circuit. Asides from the two negative issues, I will be signing "mobile 9" again next year as the solo operation is a real neat way to go!!! -- N6NKO