Greetings from the Flying Pigs of North Central Tennessee.

 We decided to make our visit to the VFW on the real veterans day this year to drum up some QRP contacts. This year we had returning pigs and visitors. Lewis KF4WK, Doc NV4T, Terry N5HOT, Richard KJ4MXI, Frank AA4AE, and one of our local C.A.T.S. club members Ralph KG4CSQ were on board for the event. Setting up for our outing was a snap as Terry, N5HOT and I have the antenna and equipment down pat. We started our adventure by getting the OK from the VFW Post 4895 commander ahead of time. As it turned out a get together was being planed inside the post and we had great conversations with the vets as they came and went.

We met up at Mc Donald's here in Clarksville Tennessee. This is a almost every day event as we have coffee after our morning QRP slow speed CW net. On this day we skipped the net and met around 8 a.m. to get fortified and in the right frame of mind to work the world. When we arrived at about 10 a.m. we went to work setting up. Terry broke out his radio and other equipment while I unrolled the antenna. Terry has made an off center fed dipole that works wonders. When the wire got unrolled we started shooting the fishing line up into the trees to get our tether lines in the air. Terry is a great shot and with all our outings he has got pretty good. It took no time and we had the antenna up and connected to the K-3. You have to go a long way to find a better radio than the K-3 and I am lucky to have several friends who have one.

We start our outings with Doc making the first contact and this year it was a great one, N4V was up and calling when Doc found him on 20 meters. It turned out to be a special call from North Carolina. The Heroes Homecoming Special Event was booming in 599 from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Bill was burning up the airways with his signal and having more fun than almost everyone but us. Next up was me and I found K7JHM, John in Price Utah. John was on 10 meters and doing 599 loud and clear. Moving down the frequency to 24891 I found ON7RU, Franky in Belgium. He was a 559 and I got a 539 from him. What a contact. Moving back up the band I went to 28027 and found S52OP, Sandi in Slovenia. He was putting out a great signal at 599 and he gave me a 599. Man 5 watts is ALRIGHT. By now the other guys had got on and checked out the bands and we were getting a little tired. Doc decided to give it one more try and found K3XI, Tim in Stephens City, VA. He was booming in at 599 and gave Doc a strong 599. It turns out Tim was stationed at Fort Campbell way back and knew right where we were operating from. We capped this day off right and knew we could go home and celebrate veterans day with a song in our hearts. You can't have this much fun by yourself. It is good friends and a K-3 to get your heart rate up. We started to police up the area and move our equipment to our vehicles knowing we had set another record for the Flying Pigs. HAVING FUN..... That is what it is all about.....

Thanks for reading our story and come visit us on 40 meters at 7125 every morning but Sunday at 0755 local time here in Clarksville, TN.

72 from KM6NN, John and the Flying Pig gang..... dit dit....