03/06/2007 | WK4P The hollerin' hillbilly, WK4P, was at it again during the ARRL Phone DX contest. Since a full bore effort was out of the question my goals for this contest were different than usual. I just wanted to play a little, work who I could, try to find a new country or two, and have fun. I accomplished all the above and then some.

Friday night was fun working 40, 80, and 160 just seeing how the 40 meter kit on the A3S and the 160 meter 1oop would do. It was good to work Henry at V26H. I played around until about 3:30am, just seeing how the antennas and the 811-H would do. That was probably too late since I had to work Saturday morning.

I woke up Saturday and couldn't resist playing a little before going to work. I was a few minutes late but what the hell, I work late a lot. At work I got caught up and was very sleepy from the previous night's activities so I went out to my 92 Chevy truck to "just listen". Right. I heard plenty of stations, some rather loud. The highlight of the afternoon was working 2 HGs and two EIs from the truck with an $8.00 hamstick, now that'll wake you up.

After work I snuck in about 10 more contacts from home until my XYL, KD4UKT, wanted to go out for dinner. She tore me away from the rig and then made me go on a social visit. Can you imagine? A contest weekend and she makes the hollerin' hillbilly go socialize? Oh well, when I got home it was back to 40, 80, and 160 until about 2:00am local time.

Sunday was just plain a great day on the radio. I had a good time working Europe on 15 and 20 Sunday morning. Then I moved to 10 to see what I could hear. A few stations but a lot of QSB. When my wife got home about 12:30 I figured the contest was over as we had a bike ride on our tandem scheduled for that afternoon. It was about 25F here in the hills so I put out a call for a temperature report on a repeater down the mountain where we were to go ride. 39F down there. Karen stubbed up on me and refuesd to ride in the cold. So what was a hillbilly to do but get back on the radio on a cold Sunday afternoon?

I stayed on 10 to see who I could find. After working a couple of stations I called KI4LPR on the local repeater to clue him in on some DX. He has been trying to "get water" since last summer's Es season. Armed with his new band privledges and his dipole he began trying to work the guys in South America. Finally he hit paydirt, working a CE on 10. KD4UKT came into our shack and worked TIs and LUs for her first taste of HF under her call. Congrats to both of them, it was fun to hear the excitement in their voices. Congrats also to KI4SSE and his 10 year old son, KI4SSF for their first DX contact with 9A7A using their new General class privledges and the antenna they built.

I then sat out looking for DX I hadn't worked in awhile, if ever. When I heard a JH call I got pumped, it had been a year since I had worked a JA. But I could barely hear him and he gave "kilowatt" as his power. Would my little tribander and 811-H get the job done? It was a struggle but he finally got my call and state. Then NL7V was next and I worked him fairly easily. After a couple more KL7 and JA contacts it was off for another adventure, a walk to my neighbor's house to attempt to gain permission to run a wire over his Christmas tree field to get my 160 meter antenna away from some power lines (a 2 year saga).

After a successful trip to the neighbors, KD4UKT cooked dinner and I decided to make one last run before the contest ended. Finally with one minute to go I made contact 250. Something about 249 qsos just wouldn't have been complete.

I thought it was over, then I got a call on the local two meter repeater. It was one of our guys wanting to rehash what he had just done during the contest. Soon it turned into a roundtable with Technicians, new Generals, an avid contester, and a seasoned DX veteran talking about what made this contest special for them. It didn't take long to see that the magic of radio still exists, no matter what your level of epertise.

So the contest was a great success for the hollerin' hillbilly. I added 14 countries to my list worked under WK4P, which I've held for about a year now. (counting both the CW and and phone contests I added about 25 new countries under WK4P). Hopefully I worked enough KH6s (8 contacts on 4 bands) that one will send me an AG eqsl to complete my eqsl WAS, something I never even thought about until I had about 47 states). I worked JA and KL7 for the first time in a while. And several of my local friends, including my lovely XYL, worked their first DX, actually KD4UKT had worked DX on 6 but not on HF. And most importantly I had a blast, kept radio in its proper place, and felt no pressure to push for a great score.

Peace and 73
Adam -- WK4P