Never expected it to be as easy to get on as it was.  I'm an infrequent HF operator, and hadn't really been on in a long time.  Expected to have to do something to the big HF antenna to get it to work, but no, it was fine.  The raising rope on the dipole center, which I thought of replacing, was fine.  The coverings on the home-brew W8NX dipole traps was just fine.  Applied some of the tape that sticks only to itself, for better protection anyway, and hoisted the whole thing into the air.

Being totally unprepared, I spent a lot of time with the N1MM Logger, 'cuz I didn't know squat about it, and never got the spotting functionality to work.   Friend was coming over to work the event together, but we instead ended up blabbing for a couple hour and then went to a movie.  

So, not a competitive effort this year, just a shakedown. Had a fairly good time and worked a lot of states I would otherwise taken a long time to get.

I'll have to agree with the 1st poster about this contest moving a lot of data - serial number, entry class, year of 1st license, and section.   Sticking the call in the middle of that was good for slowing it down so I could type the serial and entry class in, and do the year and section as it came after the delay of the call.  Field day only has entry class and section to worry about and is much more fun and much less sweat (other than it being 96 degrees and 100% hunidity on Field Day. <G>)

Next year will have function-key calling and responding and such from the computer, and I'll sit and push buttons and log entries mostly.   I think the contest could be seriously unfun without a computer for this..

Next year, clean sweep... <G>