In The Land of HF Part II

Hello everyone. I thought I would get on here and give everyone some updates about our adventures in HF here recently. I believe that last week I mentioned we were going to put up the ZS6BKV Multiband HF Dipole antenna that we built for field day. Well it is up in the air now and we've got it up there about 45ft or so. So far it seems to be working rather well. We've been getting great signal reports from stations that we've contacted around the world.
So last weekend was the IARU HF World Championship contest. Robin (AJ4IJ) and I (AJ4JD) decided to make some contacts just to test the antenna out. I mean after all, what better way to find out how well your antenna is doing right? Even though we really weren't competing in the contest, it was good experience seeing what contesting was all about. We ended up making around 22 contacts overall to stations all over the place including: Brazil, Argentina, Uraguay, Australia, Hiwaii, New Jersey, California, Washington, and Arizona.
Over the last week or so, we've been trying to work the Rockwell Collins S-Line Anniversary stations. There are 6 (N0CXX, W0CXX, W5ROK, W4CRC, W6CXX, F6KNZ) in all, and you need to contact 4 to qualify for the certificate they send out. We finally got all 4 the other day. Another special event we've been trying to get was the FBI station (K3FBI). They've been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the FBI. If you make a contact all you have to do is send a QSL card and they will send back a QSL and a real nice certificate. You can get more information from the ARRL's Special Events page. We've also been trying to work all states on 20 meters and have been doing some DX as well. Some of the states and countries we've worked this past week or so include: Ecuador, St. Barthelemy, Portugal (The Azores), Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Cuba. Some of the states include: Texas, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Alaska, and Pennsylvania.
So, with special events, working all states, and chasing DX, we have all certainly been abuzz about HF around here lately, even dad (KU4ME) has gotten real excited about it. Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. I'll try to get some pictures of the antenna in it's new home and post them soon. Everyone take care and I hope you enjoy reading the entries. If you do please let me know. Until next time....

73 and good DX de AJ4JD
Tim