11/03/2008 | K6VVA I went into town to pick up a small "Celebration Pizza" right after making a Clean Sweep, and in the parking lot decided to call my longtime buddy W6SC (who lives not far from the pizza place) to see if he had made a Sweep yet. When Jim said he had, I volunteered him to supply the beer to go with my pizza and we had a "Clean Sweep Celebration Tailgate Party" in his driveway. It was a nice in-between lunch and dinner spur-of-the-moment event as captured photographically by Jim's XYL.

This fun time help mitigate the myriad of Murphy strikes encountered before and during my less than full time QRV. I was almost going not going to operate.

Three hours before SS, my remote site connectivity went belly up. I was going to haul another rig, generator and small amp up to the VERY remote location, but didn't want to get stranded there with the uncertainties of the impact of an impending storm later in the day. So I decided to operate from my home RF Hole QTH again {SIGH}. This was a good call, as we had almost 2 inches of rain in this area and the steep winding dirt road to the mountaintop may not have been usable to get down for days and I would have been stranded.

My new SPE amp had bad problems and I'd sold 2 of my AL-80B's and the 3rd was at a tech friends QTH waiting for parts to repair it. Fortunately, my ALS-600S that worked flawlessly during CQP in Kings County last month was put into service for a little more horsepower.

A nagging left hip and leg problem made it painful to sit for very long, so I had to repeatedly get up and stretch and took several early time off periods. I'd pretty much written off the possibilities of a clean sweep, but kept thinking about the nifty special 75th Anniversary mugs. Sure glad I hung in long enough to qualify :^)

Rick, K6VVA * The Locust (Photos annotated and courtesy of W6SC).

-- K6VVA