01/26/2010 | K4GUN/R What a difference a year makes! Last year, my job and other obligations kept me very close to home for the January contest. This year, I was able to do a little travel, although not as much as I would have liked.

We started near Philadelphia in FM29. We worked 95 stations in the first 2.5 hours. That was a record for us. Thats what happens when you start a contest sitting next door to the Packrats. Those guys are great. Of my 297 total QSOs for the contest, more than 1/3 were with members of that club.

We hit FN20 briefly before heading down into Delaware in FM28. We discovered that most of DE smells like swamp gas. I had no idea.

Sunday brought some family obligations and we didnt get to our first location until mid-afternoon. We were on the side of a mountain in FM08 with a very restricted view out of the woods. We couldnt aim exactly where we wanted but still managed to do some good. We did however experience our first technical problem when the DEMI 222 high power transverter quit working.

I dropped off my wife/logger at home to put the kids to bed and went on to try to pick up a few contacts in FM17 and 07 in Louisa country VA. This was fairly productive and earned a number of mults that were badly needed. My 144/432 duplexer died in FM07 but I had a manual switch that took its place after a few missed Qs.

Weather was great for Saturday. Sunday wasnt as bad as forecast with only fog and drizzle until late evening when it rained for a bit and then just turned windy.

OK now for the thanks and shout-outs. First is to W8ZN for helping improve the rover. He made a box to key the various amps and transverters in a much more efficient manner. Next is to Bill K3EGE for a lot of help in getting me set up in Packrat territory. I love Packrats! You guys are fantastic operators and I will be back in your area often in the future. Finally, a big thanks again to my wife K4LIG for being such an amazing logger. There is no way I could do this without her help. We had our best Q count and score ever in any contest and it took real teamwork to accomplish that. -- K4GUN