The crew from NVQS assembled at the home of Brian, N1BQ, in Underhill Center, Vermont on the western slope of Mount Mansfield. Arriving Friday, Seab, AA1MY and Brian put up a pair of 88 foot doublet antennas oriented North-South and East-West. The land slopes down to the west giving the N-S antenna a dynamite take off angle.

By Saturday morning the crew had assembled and we were off an running to sputtering start. A cranky transmitter and an equally cranky keyer gave us fits for a while but soon was all on an even keel and we were running at a good rate.

Starting on 40m, moving to 15m and then to 20m, we bounced around between the upper bands through most of the daylight. Going back to 40m around dusk, we found it loaded with RTTY. On to 80m, we worked two stations and then gave up under an onslaught of EA’s who only wanted to work other EA’s. We retired to the warmth of the house for a fine dinner and fellowship.

The weather here in NWVT has been hideous the last two days. The day dawned sunny  and crisp at 31F at 1400 zulu and that was as cold as it got all day. A nasty front came in at dusk and we had to move into the tent. Though we were running multi-operator/single-transmitter it was a four man operation; Seab on the paddles, Fran, retuning the MFJ-949 every time the wind blew the ladderline around, and Brian and John trying to keep the tent from blowing over or collapsing under wind pressure.