Flying Pigs land on VFW

Greetings from the Flying Pigs of North Central Tennessee. We are back and having a great time on the air. This Veterans Day we once again visited our local VFW Post 4895 here in Clarksville Tennessee. We try to make this every year and it was touch and go with the weather making our outing a little damp.

The gang consisted of Terry-N5HOT, Lewis-KF4WK, Doc-NV4T, Jim-KT4FQ, Jack-N3BQ, Richard-K4BLE, Ralph-KG4CSQ and I John-KM6NN. We always meet at the local McDonald's here in Clarksville to get a little grub before going out. This year the sun was shinning before we went into McDonald's but it started to cloud up as we made our way to the operating location. As we started setting up the clouds kept getting darker and darker so as a precaution we moved near the barbeque area next to the VFW building. The antenna went up like it should on the first try and in no time we had the table and radio set and ready to go.

We started getting drops of rain on the table so we moved back under the awning to stay dry. As a tradition Doc AKA: Boss Hog made the first contact. I was still getting the paperwork out when I heard Doc call out the contact with OK1XC-Josef in the Czech Republic. He was on 12 meters and was booming in. We were just getting the lay of the land and Doc decided to get right down to business. You can't let him anywhere around a radio and expect him not to make a contact or two.

Once he broke the ice we settled down to business and moved over to 10 meters. The band looked wide open so we went to work making contacts. XE1XR-David in Mexico was booming in with a great signal so into the log he went. In no time F8DGY-Chris who was just outside Paris came in like gang busters and he was nice enough to post our call WA4PIG contact on the SK6AW DX cluster (WWW.SK6AW.net). That was a surprise and we got a great laugh from his posting. It seemed that 10 meters was going to be our got to band for this Veterans Day and we wanted to make the most of it. All of a sudden like FM 10 meters went away so we moved to 20 meters.

The loudest signal on 20 meters turned out to be non other than W1AW/0 in Kansas. In no time he was in the log and we started scanning 20 for contacts. We could not find much around so we checked the DX cluster and found that 15 meters was coming open. American Samoa W1AW/KH8 was on and he was just above the noise level. That and the fact that everyone in the world was calling him made him a real challenge. We waited until his signal started to come up like riding a wave and when he got to the peak we started calling. WA4PIG, WA4PIG....nothing. On the next wave at the peak again WA4PIG, WA4PIG....to my surprise he came back with my call and gave me a 559 report. WOW.... he had peaked at a 599 and then down he went on the wave after sending our report. I was stoked and started doing a little dance... All of a sudden he started coming back up so Doc sat down and got him for his home call, NV4T. Not to be left out I got on and got him for myself as KM6NN. Now that was cool.... on the next wave Terry gave him a try but he never came back up enough for him to get the contact. We scanned the band for a bit then went back to 20 meters. We heard K2USA in Oakhurst, NJ in a rag chew QSO with a portable station who seemed to want to talk forever. Pat was coming in strong but we could not wait for the rest of the story to unfold. While we were waiting for the rag chew to end Terry brought out his new to him leg key that he purchased in Huntsville. We all wanted to give it a try so being on the radio I had first chance to play with it. We set it up on the K3 and a few dits for a test and we were on the air. OM3DX-Michal in the Slovak Republic was sending great CW and was a lot stronger than W1AW/KH8 so I gave him a try with the leg key. Bam.... he was in the log. All the time we were fixed on the radio and leg key we didn't notice that it had started raining a lot more so we decided to call it a day. What a great outing on such a memorable day. We had great fun even with the rain. Thanks for reading our story from all the gang here in Clarksville and thank you to all of those who have served to make our way of life what it is today..... God Bless America....

John-KM6NN