06/11/2007 | KB1NXJ Really great contest, my second ever (January VHF was the first). Compared to January, conditions this time around were spectacular, I had three huge openings on Six: N0JJQ in Iowa, an OM in Florida (EL99) that I can't remember as of now, and VP5KE in the Turks and Caicos! Thanks to VP5KE, I now have officially worked my first foreign country in Ham Radio! W2SZ must have a spectacular score from up on Mount Greylock, they never left 50.127 the whole contest. I kept hearing reports about "extremely distorted audio", and every time we would jiggle a few wires and it would magically dissappear for a while. We eventually found out we had a defective hand-mic, and had to swap it out with a backup.

Starting Saturday evening, my dad, K5ZD, decided it would be fun to compete against me! My two contests and 10 months radio experience were no match for his 30 something years, and he beat me by 500 points! Mostly because of extra multipliers though, I still had more QSO's than he did, so I guess that gets me a consolation prize! -- KB1NXJ