Hey Mike, and others who will find this interesting,

You know what?  I didn't realize what your call was because jaws is 
pronouncing your call as a word with a Z on the end but I just spelled it 
out, and guess what?  I flat out heard you in the contest.  I cannot recall 
if it was on CW or fone but I'm thinking it was CW.  I was going to call you 
but you left or I got called away or something happened so I never made 
contact but I heard you with about an s6 or s7 signal.  Shoot.  That would 
have been fun to make a 6 meter contact but I sure enough heard you.  Now, 
for your interest, and the others on the list, guess what I used for an 
antenna.  You won't believe it.  I don't believe it.  Last Wednesday, I 
turned up the volume jump to six meters, and right on 50.105 was a solid S9 
plus signal calling CQ.  I mentioned this already.  It was X E1WWW getting 
ready for the contest.  Never heard Mexico during the contest either.  I 
said to myself, "Man, I wish I could tune this R7 vertical with the tuner 
and work the guy.  Not thinking it would do any good, I snapped on a 
carrier, punched up the talking watt meter, and my SWR is 1.7 to 1 across 
the whole freaking 6 meter band on the r7 vertical.  Don't ask me whie 
because it doesn't tune six meters.  Something happened a month ago and two 
bands jumped from almost flat to 6.5 to 1 SWR readings.  I haven't taken it 
off the roof yet to see if I can figure out why.  Anyhow, I worked the X E 
stations with 40 watts and got an S9 report.  I used my R7 throughout the 
whole contest, ran pile ups and everything from Michigan, Alabama, to 
western Canada and the west coast and states along the Golf Coast as well. 
and had a blast.  I can't wait now to get my little 3 element 6 meter beam 
up on the tower and rotator.  I also worked everybody from about 50 miles 
out in the Denver metro area on 2 meter side band, 6 meters, and 432.1 this 
weekend.  If you work all the guys active in this area of 50 miles, and 
nothing else, you can make at least 300 contacts.  Plus it gave me a great 
picture of how, using a small Diamond 9 foot dual band 2 and 70 CM antenna, 
how well I can get out.  The antenna is 18 feet above ground.  So I think 
I'm going to get a dual band horizontal 2 meter and 70 CM beam now for the 
tower.  Anybody have an suggestions for such a dual band horizontal beam for 
2 meters and 70 CM?

Phil.
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