06/25/2008 | AB5GU For the last 2 years Jimmy Turner, K5JTJ and I have set up a grid-xpedition station on the beach in the rare EL28 water grid for this contest. This year we set up 2 towers a week in advance of the contest toward making this a permanant contest location in the future. Hand mixing concrete in the Texas sun is a real experiance, everyone should try it once, hi hi. With 2 tilt over Rohn towers at 30 and 40 feet in place, the advance prep was done. We returned the day before the contest to hang antenas and set up the operating stations in a tent. The radios were a TS-2000X on the 6 meter station and a Yaesu FT-736 for 144, 222, and 432Mhz. Antennas were a 5 el Cushcraft at 35' for 6 meters, a 14 el KLM on 2 meters, A 7 wave length M2 on 222, and a 20 el Mosley on 432. We used mast mounted pre-amps on 144 and 432.

WOW! What an opening on 6 meters! We worked 6 meters until 1AM the first night. The band was still open when we went to bed. We worked 45 states in 19 hours of actual on the air time. On Sunday we even had an opening into Nebraska on 2 meters. Thanks to everyone who worked us. Looking forward to next year. -- AB5GU