A nice opportunity for me this time ! I was invited to join the famous IQ1RY Team in Bra, as SSB Runner to participate to the Ari International Contest as MULTI MULTI .

Together with my fellow IK1QBT Tony and IU1JCZ Mauri, we join the Team Saturday in the late morning, and after a small tour explaining all the features, we got the briefing before start… at 12.00 UTC 5 stations started calling CQ TEST !

Team was composed, from IK1SPR Flavio, IZ1BLG Filippo, IK1RQT Flavio, IK1QBT Tony, IU1JCZ Mauri and me…. everybody of was worked really a lot… just one operator at time was paused… in this way we all got a lot of fun !!! For few time also I1BEP Renato, president of Ari Bra, joined us to run some calls.

In the evening, as all operators was quite busy running qso’s, we decided to avoid the “Pasta Time” scheduled for dinner, and we sub with a robust late brunch with some delikatessen incoming from Piemonte and Liguria, together with some goood white wine …. running pile up with the glass in hand was quite amazing !!

The night was quite good; the Liguria Team (IK1TTD, IK1QBT and IU1JCZ) got a sleep slot from 00.00 to 03.00, before and after us other operators got their sleep turn. I personally restarted at 03.30 working on 20 meter with a very good rate… USA was coming at that time 9+20, so was fast and easy to add several hundred qso’s to our log. The station of 10meter was instead very calm, almost any signal on the band at that time, but was quite espected.

Late in the morning, the team was again completed with 7 operators, and we still did some quick change, to let every body get fun; unfortunately the solar flar of Saturday cancelled almost completely the possibility to work the 40 meters in the morning, where normally should be really plenty of signal… I remeber 4 qso in about 1 hours …. I had a qso with another Italian Ham and he was saying my singal was the only one audible in the whole band….

Notwistanding the very bad condition, we continued to call until the end, this is what Contester do ! At 12.00 UTC the Contest ended… after the backup of the log (never sya never !!) and shutting down all radio’s, it was time for a real LUNCH !!!

Our friends prepared for us a super PASTA ALLA CARBONARA, and some very good local wine to complete…. lunchtime was very relaxed and regenerating, after 24 hours of real effort to stay on the top of operations !

A reat thanks to IQ1RY Team, which invited us for thi Contest ! They make feel us as at home, thanks guys !