Anne OH2YL and Marko OH2LG were finally ready for that long-awaited 10 days of intense operating deep in the Balkans as Z68YL and Z68OM, respectively. The contacts came in exhilarating waves as the pair operated from May 20th through to the 30th. Then, just days before the big finish, the two operators were confronted with a pileup like no other:
Cows. A herd of at least 50 of them, rampaging through the antennas and messing with the guy wires. A blog post written by Jari OH6BG, said that [quote] "The guy wires were given the ride of their life," [endquote] As for the feedlines, well, the cows' teeth took the word "feedline" quite literally. The feedlines for the end-fed half-wave wire antenna and the 6-metre dipole were both chewed through.
With some repair work and a new vertical antenna, the operators were soon back in business. By the time they went QRT, despite high winds, QRM and bovine intervention, they managed to work their way to a total of just fewer than 10,000 QSOs.
Resilient, determined and resourceful, they would not be cowed.....in Kow-sovo.