Ovide, K8EV, our “kid wrangler,” did his thing yesterday and we were able to get three kids on the air. Seven-year-old Jack was our first kid communicator; he spoke to K9IRO. Peter was our second, and Brian our third.  A good time was had by all.

We were very fortunate in that band conditions on 40m were very good. All three stations we talked to were 57 – 59, and no one had to strain to hear one another.

Tower Update
We’re making progress slowly, but surely on the tower project. Over the course of last week, I mounted all the lightning arrestors to the mounting plate that goes in the NEMA box. On Friday, Jack, Dave, and I lowered the tower and mounted the rotor plate and rotor. We mounted the thrust bearing, too, but after inspection, John decided that it needed some kind of cap to prevent water from pooling in it.

Football Saturdays are always very slow down at the museum—at least as far as the number of visitors is concerned—but I still go down there anyway. As far as operating the station was concerned, it was a lot of fun.

First of all, I managed to work several special event stations:

• W0CGM at the Milwaukee Road Railroad, Newport, MN. This station was operating from the restored 104-year-old Milwaukee Railroad Dispatch Tower.
• N4J at the Archaeology Open House at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, Forest, VA. This station was operating from Jefferson’s retreat home and farm in Bedford County, VA. The archaeologists there are working to uncover evidence of life and work on the plantation 200 years ago.

Right after I broke with N4J, he got a call from W4JAM. I listened intently, with the idea that I’d get a chance to have a contact with him. As soon as they ended their short QSO, I yelled out, “CONTACT!” Fortunately, N4J broke for me, and John, W4JAM was still listening.

We had a very nice chat, and as it turns out, his wife has the callsign W0MAN! So, he’s going to send me both cards. I got two for the price of one! Both John and his wife, as it turns out, are both Honor Roll DXers.

I tried to work a couple more special event stations, but I wasn’t able to copy any more of those listed on the ARRL website. There were two that I really wanted to work, too: the Blackeye Pea Festival at the East Texas Arboretum and Botanical Society and the Nowhere, KS Special Event. Maybe next year.

This Saturday, we operated the MI QSO Party—I operated on Saturday down at the Hands-On Museum. To avoid any confusion, we used the W8CWN callsign.

I got to the museum around 10 am, and the contest didn’t start until noon, so I fiddled around a bit, trying to figure out how the bands were. I made three contacts on 40m and a couple of contacts on 20m, so it looked like band conditions were going to cooperate.

When noon hit, I was off and running. Switching back and forth between 40m and 20m, I made a total of 90 contacts in the next two hours, including three DX contacts. Not stellar, but not bad, either.

Having my WinKeyer certainly helped. As I’ve mentioned, the Omni VII doesn’t have a built-in memory keyer, meaning that in previous contests, I had to bang out the CQs myself. The WinKeyer improved the process immensely.

On Sunday, Jim, K8ELR, opened the station up around 12:30. I joined him about 2:15.

Unfortunately, the band conditions weren’t so good on Sunday. We managed to eke out only one CW contact on Sunday.

Coming Up
Next Saturday, April 24, we’ll be conducting another One-Day Tech Class. There’s still room, so if you know someone that would like to attend, have them e-mail me at cwgeek@kb6nu.com.