Great Weekend

I was on call this weekend so I couldn't get too far from my computer and the internet but I did manage to still get a lot done around the castle.  One of my four handsome grandsons (KD9JID) stopped by on Friday, and I put him to work mowing the lawn.  He's going to Canada in July for a 10 day  canoe trip and is working odds jobs to have some spare change for the voyage.  I am not afraid of hard work, I can watch it for hours.  

Hard Work in Progress

When we got that done, his Mamaw found a few other yard jobs that needed to be done, so we so worked hard and pulled out a couple of shrubs that she needed to have gone so they could be replaced with CONCRETE flower pots. He stayed the evening and prepared for the labors of Saturday.  On Saturday we headed to the hardware store, bought some manure, some dirt, some paver stones and then hit the Asian Buffet for lunch.  The kid could be a contender.  Pretty sure he consumed 3 gallons of ice cream.  Finally made it home, and set the pots where she wanted them.  Meanwhile Mamaw (my wife) was treating his sister (KD9JIE) to toes and nails at the local beautification place, while we slaved away.   Dinner was home brew pizza and we took them home. 

So my phone is going off about every 20 minutes all night Saturday night,  I get paged when important servers get rebooted, and this is patch weekend.  So I didn't get much sleep last night, it's about 8:30PM now I am looking forward to getting some sleep tonight and few interruptions.  We'll see. 

I fired up the K1 at about 6:45PM while I was doing some other work and manage to reel off three QSO's before going QRT at about 8PM. 

My first QSO tonight was Susan W7KFI and she was calling CQ MM...and I spaced it an answered her.  She was kind enough to give me a 589 to her 599 on 7051 and went separate ways.  She is a retired Army Master Sergeant.  She was signing with a /5 so she was operating from her home in Gulfport Mississippi.  Great FIST!! 

W7KFI loves to Sail the World - Check her QRZ BIO 

Next up was Steve NN0SS up in Minnesota on 7052.  This was 2 way QRP as he was on his KX3.  Band was very noisy and I was getting some static crashing, although there is not a storm in site.  Steve belongs to SKCC and the NAQCC and is an active QRP CW operator.  Thanks for the contact Steve!  I got a 589 and he was 589 as well. 

Last but not least was Mike AA9AA up in Mantiwoc WI.  Mike was running a home brew QRP rig to a dipole, the QRM was fierce for the first half of the QSO...I guess two QRP ops having a QSO are tough to hear.  Mike has been a ham for 29 years and has a great fist.  Mike has quite a shack setup as you can see. I love the old telephone!  We traded 599's on 7058 and chewed the rag for a bit. 

Mike AA9AA - Ham Shack and QRP Laboratory

Well that's it for this weekend. No new states this time. I am on call tomorrow and then I am free for 5 more weeks.  WEEEE

de KB9BVN

Best 73!