New Dances and W4H Update

If you read this blog, then you know, each and every personal achievement deserves a special dance.

This weekend, I was finally able to sport the "I Contacted Japan!" dance -- not once, but twice. I just hope I can get confirmation, since they were both contesters. Thanks to JR5VHU and JH4UYB (btw, that's a station!) for the excellent signal reports and the contact on 20m!

Additionally, I hit another milestone, requiring another dance: the "I'm over 1,000 lookups" dance!
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We did some work on the dipoles this past weekend. Now that the leaves were falling off the trees, we could see where the wind had blown the balun around and got it all stuck in a branch -- a branch that Tim hacked down...

He's so good, he can cut down that limb with his eyes closed!

We also did some W4H Special Event cq'ing on 80m. I worked it for almost an hour, had a pile-up that sounded like a hornet's nest, got spotted on the DX Cluster, and made 46 speedy contacts. I was starting to lose my voice though, and had to pass it to Tim. I did make one very interesting contact... I pulled out a call at one point, N3FJP, and as I was writing it down I was thinking to myself how familiar that call sounded... you know that feeling when you hear a call and you know you've seen it before but can't place it. About that time, Tim piped up, "Hey, He's the guy that wrote this program." That's right folks. Another example of how small this world is. Scott, N3FJP, wrote the logging program that we use, the Amateur Contact Log. We've only been using it for about 2 weeks, but it is AWESOME! We're going to be sending him a check soon... this one is well worth paying $19.00 for folks!

Lastly, I just want to remind everyone that may have contacted me during the W4H special event. Since there are multiple operators in many places, we are all doing our own QSL'ing. We have had special QSL cards printed for this event, and if you want one, send your S.A.S.E. (or S.A.E. & 1 green stamp/1 IRC) to me directly. I'm good on QRZ.

Anyway... just thought I'd post that brief little update. Take care everyone and I'll "see" you down the log!