Salmon Run 2015

Greetings from the Flying Pigs of North Central Tennessee..... Clarksville Tennessee Chapter....

We have been trying to get out and about for some radio time for quite a while, and the Salmon Run has always been a great CW contest to be a part of.... This year we invited everyone in the area to come out and enjoy a good old CW get together. As luck would have it several other things were going on around town that took the attention of our local hams.

We started out by having coffee and grub at our local hang out on Riverside Drive here in Clarksville. Mc Donald's always welcomes us with hot coffee and lots of grub to choose from.

The gang included Terry-N5HOT, Lewis-KF4WK, Doc-NV4T, Tommy-KG4YJX, and myself John-KM6NN. We made our way down to the Liberty Park on the bank of the Cumberland River and began our set up procedure.  Terry and I always set up the antenna so that when it does not work right we know who to blame.... On this outing we had no trouble setting up and within half an hour we were set up and on the air.... that included talking to several people who were passing by wondering what we were up to.... We always love to get people interested in radio and especially CW low power radio.

We were looking forward to a fun filled morning and had great hopes that the band would be in our favor. We started on 40 meters and soon Doc had WW4SF-The Swamp Fox Contest Group in the log.... They were working the South Carolina QSO party and had a great signal.... Next up I came across W4UX-James in Pafafftown in North Carolina. He was also working the same contest. We moved over to 20 meters and started hearing several Salmon Run signals but all seemed not to hear us. After trying everyone we thought we could I came along W6SZN/7-G Kip Edwards in Indianola Washington. Thanks Kip for our one and only Salmon Run contact..... Great signal......

After calling other west coast stations I was beginning to think they did not love us..... No luck with anyone except Kip.... So back to 40 meters we went to try our luck on some short hop stations... and in no time I had N2MM-Carol in Shamong  New Jersey was in the log. Great signal Carol...

As we hunted up and down the band we seemed to be hearing less and less stations.... We came to the conclusion that the band was going bad on both our major operating areas so at 1730Z we decided to give up and take our great contacts and call it a day..... It was fun trying to outdo the bad bands and get as many contacts as we could and getting to talk with people about ham radio is a great thing for us..... Thanks from the Flying Pig gang here in Clarksville Tennessee and we hope to see you on the air.....

72 from John-WA4PIG and the gang..... dit dit.....