02/23/2009 | K8CQ The "antenna farm" consists of the aluminum rain gutter on the back of the house and a 15 ft flagpole. CC&R antenna restrictions are a bummer; but it's the price I am willing to pay to live in paradise in my retirement. So I don't participate in the contest to win. But it is always fun to crack a pile-up. My results exceeded my expectations.

The conditions on 40m on Saturday morning (for me) were excellent. The Pacific was coming into southeast Georgia like locals. Within 10 minutes I snagged HK1N, VK2IM, T27A, and AH7C. ZM3A couldn't copy the last letter of my call. Bummer! I worked many new ones on 20m and 15m. And two new ones on 80m Saturday night, bringing me up to 86 worked on 80m. I'm now close to 7 bands of 100 or more. And 243 total on all bands. Not bad for the gutter and flagpole.

Sunday afternoon the JA's were rolling in on 20m and I snagged several. But never could crack RWWA's pile-up. He was 10 to 15 dB over S9 at times. Boy that's when I wished I still had the big tower and yagi back in Ohio. But the weather here beats snow any day of the week.

All in all it was a great contest for me, even though my effort was mostly to look for new ones, not to win.

So if you need IOTA NA-058 or Glynn County or grid EM91, I'll be glad to give it a whirl. And I'm always good for a chat on 30 or 40.

73 and best DX, Jeff -- K8CQ