Nine members of the Santa Fe Trail Amateur Radio Club and a good friend from the Lone Star State participated in this year's Kansas QSO Party, combining their efforts at multiple locations to record more than 500 contacts over a two-day period.

     Roughly 44% of the 532 contacts the operators made Saturday, August 29 and Sunday, August 30 took place at what is fondly referred to as the "antenna farm" in Edgerton owned by Del Sawyer, KØDDS. There, Del, Bob Shaumeyer, KCØTZX, Eric Dziadosz, KFØQIS, Jeff Darby, KSØJD, and Byron Kroeger of Texas, KI5GNH, racked up 166 contacts on the single-sideband mode while Marty Peters, KEØPEZ, the treasurer of the club, and Andrew Kaberline, AEØZL, were connecting with 69 hams using the CW (Morse code) mode.

     In the photograph that accompanies this story, Byron, left, and Del are pictured in the foreground at the SSB station inside Del's vintage trailer the morning of the 29th. Andrew is visible in the background at the CW station, but Marty, who was seated to Andrew's left, is not.

     Marty was also responsible for 124 contacts from the CW station at his residence in Olathe, and Jeff chipped in with 2 more SSB contacts at his home in Olathe, bringing the total number of SSB and CW contacts to 361. Those contacts were worth 43,920 points.

     In addition to the SSB and CW contacts, club members operating from their homes registered 171 contacts on the FT8 mode.

     Greg Wolfe, KIØKK, led the way with 102 and was followed by Jeff with 46, Howard Cripe, NØAZ, with 22, and Fred Warren, KFØIKQ, with 1.