As you well know a few weeks ago, I had to go out of town for work for a week. I was in Alpharetta, Georgia participating in a disaster recovery drill to ensure that the company I work for can recover our IT infrastructure and applications to run the business in the event a disaster where to strike the corporate office. Well while down there I had my HT with me and listened a bit every morning and every night to the happenings on the repeaters down there. I have to say there were several repeaters in and around the Atlanta area and several conversations and topic were always going on at night and in the morning. I have to say I never once heard anything that was out of line. Never once did I hear anything on politics or any other subjects that could cause major disagreements. So to the Atlanta area operators I say cheers. If you ever find yourself in the area, a great resource for net and repeater information can be found at the North Fulton Amateur Radio League website: http://www.nfarl.org/repeaters/Atlanta_Area_Repeaters.pdf.
So upon my return back to Knoxville, my XYL informed me that Rick N4JTQ and several others from the 470 Amateur Radio Group were going down to one of our local news stations for a tour of the facilities. This was all made possible by Jim Yearwood, KE4HX who works down at the station. So we decided to meet down there for the tour with mom and dad so we could see the news station and to meet some familiar voices and put faces to the names. It was a wonderful tour and very interesting to say the least. You can read my XYL's blog as she also has a post about it. I will include some pictures below as well.
This last weekend, September 6, 2008, dad (KU4ME) gave us a call to see what we were doing and to inform us that the Tennessee QSO party was happening that afternoon. We told him we were at the grocery store and to go start working it and we would drop by once we were done.
So after we finished our errands we headed over to dads. Robin was up first as down had only made 5 contacts from the time he called us and the time we got there.
Within the first 25 minutes Robin (AJ4IJ) had made 17 contacts on 20 meters and was ready to trade places. So it was then my turn. In the same amount of time I had about 13 contacts on 80 meters as 20 had faded out. We tried to get dad in there for some more but he got more joy watching us contest than anything. Although he did make one contact and then gave it over to Robin. In about another 35 minutes or so she made an additional 29 contacts. After that round she turned it over to dad who made another 5 contacts for the team.
It was after that time Robin decided she was a bit tired and needed a nap. So dad and I went back out and I picked up where we left off. I started on 40 meters and 20 more contacts in a little over 20 minutes.
After that brief stint I woke up Robin and we decided to run out to town to pick us up dinner. Upon our re-arrival at dad's we ate dinner saw that dad had made an additional 6 contacts while we were away. So we finished dinner and Robin went at the last hour and few minutes of the contest like a mad woman on a mission. In 1 hour and 6 minutes she made a total of 43 contacts. When all was said and done we had a total of 140 contacts in 2 DX entities 1 Canadian Province, 32 different states, and 30 Tennessee counties.
Our official log was sent in on Thursday evening with a total of 130 contacts as we removed the duplicate contacts from the hand written log. I'd imagine we should know something about how The Toadtown Team did sometime in October. We certainly had a whole lot of fun and look forward to the next contest.
Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. Check out the TV Station Tour pictures below and stay tuned for pics from the HAM picnic that Jack (KD4TNY) and Teresa (KI4ZQO) will be putting on at Norris Dam State Park. The weekend after that will be the TenTec Hamfest. Anyway, Until then...
73 de AJ4JD
Tim
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