11/20/2006 | K4XD Well, as a ham with a whopping 7 months under my belt, I had a blast! I worked CW sweeps a few weeks back and was unable to start until Sunday, so I was 6 sections short of a sweep. My goal for phone sweeps was to earn that Clean Sweep mug, and I was very pleased to hit that mark with the final section being BC on 20M (thanks to VA7DB).

I need to also thank Paul Hansen at ICOM's Southeast service center for turning my 756 Pro 2 around in under a week! He got it Monday, I got it back Saturday morning. What a pleasant surprise to see that Fedex truck pull into my driveway!

I started on 15M on Saturday, moved down to 20M when I had worked what I could on 15M, and continued heading down the bands to 40M and 80M that night, finishing up at 0730Z. After 6 hours sleep, I was back at it on 20M and had my clean sweep at 2113, which took the heat off!

My 20M and 15M QSO's were made on my homebrew hexbeam at 35', and the 40M and 80M QSO's were on a pair of K1JEK's Cobra Ultralight inverted vee's (one full-size N-S and one "Jr" E-W). The AL-80B, WriteLog, and Band Master were all essential elements to getting the job done. Maybe next time I'll try unassisted - in the early stages I pretty much swept each band and worked what was there, but to get those last 10 sections, the spotting nets were a huge help.

I made all my Q's with S&P and a hand mike - I have my order in for a boomset for next time -- I don't see how you can run without "hands-free" for the keyboard!!

Thanks to all the kind words from those who noticed my "06" check! I had to repeat that several times to a number of my contacts who were sure they were hearing things! Didn't realize it was such "rare DX!"

73,
Rowland K4XD -- K4XD