N7KRN - Fred and K7IOC - Lee would like to thank all the club members and friends who supported our club’s efforts in this QSO Party last week. As a result, at the club station we were successful in making about 175 contacts over the course of this 15-hour event.

A new island for the USI program was "qualified" by KK7NQW-Jonathan who paddled in his kayak all the way out to Burrows Island on Friday. He spent the night there to be ready for the 5 AM starting time on Saturday. Qualification requires at least 15 QSOs and earns the activator recognition in the US Island program directory.

Also, KV7DX - Jason, and KI7RMS - Kim actually hiked out to spend the day and activate Craft Island as an Expedition. Check out their video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEPMnp5OzHY. Then there were our Rovers: AL2I - Dave, KA7GPP - Dan, N7LRG - Terry, and W0FLZ - Paige who did an awsome job getting on the air from many different island locations. These Expeditions, Rovers, and the other Fixed Island stations who were on the air deserve so much credit! THANK YOU for all the work, travel, and tremendous effort involved in what you accomplished. It really made it a fun and rewarding time!

The W7PIG club callsign was operated by N7KRN - Fred and K7IOC - Lee from Fred's QTH. Fred's station had a 3 element tri-band yagi at 100', a 6M yagi about 30 feet and two wire antennas for 40M & 80M. One of these was about 40' high and performed very well as an NVIS antenna. They had QSO’s on SSB, CW and digital (FT8, PSK31 and Olivia). The W7PIG station made contacts with Hams in over 20 states and at least two of these were on US islands.

Noteworthy was the degree to which the Rovers contacted one another for QSOs and multipliers adding to their score and fun! The club repeater helped everyone keep in touch and coordinate QSOs during the event. Many Rovers also had time to make contacts with other stations ourside our area - some of which were US islands as well.

The total W7PIG QSO count was 175 yielding a score of over 102,000 points earning our club FIRST PLACE in the QRO Fixed category! Great job by all!

For more information about the US Islands program, please see US Islands.