VP2M - Montserrat

    In 1978 Stan Arnett AC8W and I got our first shot at the "big time" -- being DX! We
took our wives to Montserrat for the IARU Radio Sport contest in July. That was when
IARU RS was a 48 hour contest and we thought it would be great to be on the "other side
of the pileup"!
    We rented a house for 11 days in the Woodlands, Montserrat from Doc Hollatz,
VP2MF (sk) - sight unseen. It turned out to be a just built 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house
with a fully equipped shack in the third bedroom on the lower level. The calls Doc got for
us were VP2MEH for me - K8DD, VP2MFE for Stan and his wife, Trish KA8AMX got
VP2MFA. My wife, Kathie, is not a ham so she didn't get a call, but she did learn to log
for Trish!
    In the IARU RadioSport, using Trish's call, VP2MFA, we had well over 2500 QSO's,
which was about third place in the world, but the thrill of the pileups and the high rates on
SSB (this was paper logging and we would write the time down for the first and last QSO's
on the page - peaking about 15 - 20 minutes per page of 50 QSO's)caused us to forget to
search for multipliers! The end result was 12th in the world. Still not bad for our first
adventure as rookies operating outside of the US!

And go here for the pictures!