7th Area QSO Party 2019

Pigs Having Fun

We started the morning as we always do by having coffee and a bite to eat at one of our local restaurants. For this event we picked a centrally located cafe on Dover Road AKA: Hwy 79, Becky's Cafe,  https://www.yelp.com/biz/beckys-clarksville .

As the gang started showing up for breakfast, others, after eating were leaving. Ed and Terry left and told us they would get things started by putting up the antennas. No sooner than they left two more came in. After they ate we started toward our operating site that was only a few miles away. By the time I got to Woodlawn Park I saw that Terry and Ed had almost got our off center fed dipole up in the trees. Terry had placed both ends of the antenna guy lines into trees on the first two shots of his home made wrist rocket fishing reel. What a great shot Terry.  I helped pull up the antenna then started unloading Terry's K3S and his assorted equipment to get on the air. In no time we had the CW station up and running. Ed broke out his equipment and set up the SSB station. The weather forecast called for intermittent showers and the sky had that look. I set up a tarp along the back of the CW station to block any rain or wind. That tarp worked well blocking both the wind and several short rain falls.

We operated mainly on 20 meters between 14.030 and 14.048. We made all of our contacts in that area. The K3S filters work great and several of the contacts were on the same frequency. After several contacts I heard a call on 14.026 that I thought was an operator error....4M1Y... I went back to his call and he gave me a 599 NR 102. My report to him was 599 NR 001. I had just made contact with Grecia Azuaje in Trujillo Venezuela....wow... Later we found out that she was working an International DX contest... Great signal and boy that off center dipole works great.

After a few more contacts I gave up the key to Terry and Ken. I wanted to check the SSB station and take a break from CW. Ed was in a QSO and after his report was given he handed me the headset to listen to the other station. He had just contacted W8QLY, the operator was calling CQ Special Event when ED found him. It turned out that the station was celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the Mahoning Valley ARC in Youngstown Ohio. What a great contact for our club. Ed went on to make another contact with W5HIO-Loren Robbins in Brinkhaven Ohio. Both stations gave him a report of 58 to 59. Way to go Ed...... Ed was using a antenna of his own design called the Ed-tenna.... His antenna and other videos can be seen on his YouTube channel  "Ed B. United States Army Retired".

The wind started blowing around our operating area and we began to have inter-mitten rain showers so we decided to call it a day. Our total time of operation was about three hours. That does not sound like much but when you operate CW for any amount of time you can understand that it can get on your nerves. We started taking down the station and it took no time to get everything put away...  What a fun day....

Later I was informed by Terry that our claimed score for the event was 1254 with multi operators.... and one International DX contact with 4M1Y.... not bad and this is only the beginning of our 65th. Anniversary outings... 73 from the C.A.T.S. Club of Clarksville.... thanks for stopping by to read our story....

This story is dedicated in Loving Memory of Lewis Thomas Linville Sr. (KF4WK) SK. February 2, 1937 - February 15, 2019. 73 Lewis....

John-KM6NN 

Lewis T Linville SR   KF4WK (SK)