08/09/2009 | W9SZ I got to the hilltop in EN50rl at about 3:30 pm local time (2030Z) on Saturday. It had been raining and continued to rain. I set up the antennas in the rain and got drenched. I started setting up the station on a table, with a large sheet of plastic over the gear and my head. I worked one station on 222 and 432 and tried to work him on 903. I had just recently built two new LNA's for 903 and 1296 and had them checked at the Central States VHF conference a week earlier. I found out the 903 preamp oscillated. I thought I had it fixed but couldn't hear the station OR the K3SIW beacon with it. Fortunately I had taken my original GaAsFET preamp and swapped it out (in the rain). By then the other station could not be found but at least I could hear the K3SIW beacon with it. I retired to my car to wait for the rain stop.

The rain quit at about 7 pm local time (00Z Sunday). I set up the rest of the station and worked quite a few people including W9SNR/R when he was in two of his grids. We worked on all bands thru 10 GHz but 5760, where he was S9+20 but he couldn't hear me.

I slept in my car and actually had to run the heater a few times during the night to keep warm! I never thought I'd have to do that in August.

I got up on Sunday morning and worked some more people. My only band sweep was with K3SIW on all bands 222 through 10368 MHz. I worked W9SNR/R when he was in another of his grids. He still couldn't hear me on 5760 even though he was quite loud at my end.

I had to QRT at 1500Z on Sunday. Wish I could've stayed longer. There were no spectacular long-haul tropo openings this year like there was last year, but I did quite well all the way up to Milwaukee (240 miles) through 1296.

I had no other equipment mishaps and was happy with the way everything was performing. All in all, a fun contest. Sorry I missed some people.

73, Zack W9SZ -- W9SZ