Fisheye shot of some of the crew at NR5M during CQWW phone contest October 24th and 25th, 2009.

Pictured in the forground are Marshall, K5QE(left), and Bill, K5GA(right),

Eric, NM5M, captain of the 15 meter station hard at work Saturday night working Eu on 15 meters.  Eric and Bill, K5GA, serve as operator recruiting contacts for the NR5M team.  We are actively looking for good ops for both cw and phone.  During phone cqww active (and potentially very productive) slots remained unfilled.  We placed a priority on completeing recent antenna work so that the station would be ready for the upcoming cwcqww and the phone and cw sweepstakes.

Another shot of the crew at NR5M during the heat of battle on Saturday night.  Positions from the left bottom to left top: 10Run-10Mult(empty)-75/80 Mult-75/80Run-15Run(red hat)-15Mult(empty)-160Mult(empty)-160Run(empty).  Right top to botton:20Mult(obscured)-20Run(barely visible in red shirt)-40 Run-40Mult(empty)-6 Run(empty in right foreground). Shoudda been on 160 and 40 mult at that time but...oh,well!

Colin, KU5B, spent time in every chair during the contest.  And probably logged the most hours of any operator in the chairs he occupied.

Thanks Colin!

Bill, N5YA, travelled 8 hours round trip to get the 3 ele 75/80 @ 180' playing in time for Saturday night. 

That antenna made a huge difference during the JA run on Saturday night versus the few we worked on Friday.

Thanks, Bill!

N.B, Dale preparing a hearty breakfast for the ops and climber before Bill's trek up the tower.

Kenny(L), KZ5KG, and Fortunado celebrate completion of the 80/20/20 tower.  The celebration was a bit premature as the 80 was not playing when it was tested later that night (Thursday).  The problem was not due to anything either of them did and the subsequent repair of the antenna was cause for more celebration Saturday afternoon!  Unfortunately Ken and Fortunado were too tired to participate at that time.

Bryan,W5KFT, at the 15 meter run station. I've got a better picture of him but I promised I wouldn't post it if he said nice things about us!

Dave, K5MQ, operated most of the contest.  This is one clean operator--took two 30 minute showers that kept the rest of us waiting at the bathroom door.  Guess I will need to build another bath. Or maybe I need to teach him about an Aggie "shower."

He also did a good job cleaning the bands on several of the mult stations!

Bob, NX5M, at the control on the 40 mult station. At one point we had NX5M, NM5M and NR5M all operating at the same time.  Any other "M"s out there that wanna play?

Eddie is the COOK/make ANYTHING work/fabricate ANYTHING guy.  He is THE most important member of the NR5M team.  If you don't gain 5 lbs while your at NR5M for the weekend then shame on you!

This was taken Sunday afternoon while he still believed that Texas was going to be ranked 3rd behind Florida and his alma mater, Alabama.  He wasn't smiling so much on Tuesday!

I, however, was!!!

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: NR5M

Operator(s): NR5M K5GA KU5B K5MQ N5YA K5QE KJ5T N5XJ NX5M W5KFT N5OAO K5NZ KB4KBS/5 KZ5KG

Station: NR5M

Class: M/M HP

QTH:

Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:

Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries

------------------------------

  160:  244    16       34

   80:  445    25       85

   40: 1126    33      119

   20: 1409    38      151

   15: 1441    34      140

   10:  278    13       40

------------------------------

Total: 4943   159      569  Total Score = 7,777,224

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

I want to thank the crew for all the hard work in the ongoing process of

building the station as well as the operating team.  Special thanks to Bill,

N5YA, for driving 4 hours each way to climb the new 75/80 meter tower (185')

and repair the new 3 ele yagi on Sat so that we could play it on Sat night. And

thanks to Ken, KZ5KG, for wiring the new 20 short-stack (140'/70') so we could

use it as a mult-station during the contest.

Thanks to Eddie for all the great grub.  And Dale for not killing Eddie ( and

thereby forcing us to eat fast food!)

This was one good step forward in the rebirth of the NR5M station.  There is

still lots to do on my part to get the station in competitive condition but,

after undergoing the last 6 months in the car business, I am up for a real

challenge.

Nice to see 15 meters back!  I guess I'm going to have to build the mult

antennas for 15 after all!

Thanks to all for a great time.

George NR5M