1982
VP2KBU
This is when it all started. I was 17 at the time and a senior in High School. I was hooked on Contesting and DXing by this time. So in December I traveled to St. Kitts with some family friends with a radio and vertical antenna put right out on the beach (see the black and white banner picture). I stayed out at the beach cottage while the others found lodging at a hotel. I operated the 10m contest and mixed mode and was 1st in North America and First place Non W/VE. Not bad for my first time out of the country! I was hooked on being on the DX and knew I would be back soon!
1984
VP2KBU
Ops: W0MU-KC0FW at the time, K0GU and WB0MIV
Jay, Doug and I decided to try our luck in the ARRL DX SSB contest. We brought down a ton of equipment, radios, amps and big antennas. We entered the Multi-Op Two Transmitter catagory and finished 2nd in the World. We stay at the same cottages I stayed at in 1982. During this trip we installed an A4 on what they called a telephone pole. The "pole" turned out to be one of the tallest trees in the grove behind the cottages! They cut it down and trimmed off the branches. We mounted the beam and rotor ahead of time. The crew dug a huge hole int the mostly sandy beach behind one of the cottages. We had two stations one ran 15/40 with a monobanders that we really too low. The other station had the A4 at 40 ft and wires for 80 and 160. After log analysis we determined that we go beat on 80 and 160.
1986
V47M-V47A-V47K Ops: Same as 1984 Are our narrow defeat in 1984 we came back down to avenge the loss. This trip we came down early and operated the ARRL DX CW contest Multi-Single as V47A and we came in 2nd or 3rd. Not bad for a couple of SSB ops. We attempted to operate the CQ 160 SSB contest. We mostly listened to the USA work USA. We were a bit concerned about our 160 antenna. Upon arrival we found that the A4 had slipped in the boom to mast clamp causing the elements to be angled toward the ground. We found another ham with some aluminum tower and we set it up against the "pole" and being the youngest and lightest (read not so smart) got to climb the tower to fix the antenna. A climbing belt...errr rope was fashioned. I was very happy to get back on the ground without incident. With the new tower we were able to get our 160 and 80 antenna much higher in the air. We also found better masts for the 40 and 15m antennas. We also improved our receiving antennas. We ended up taking number one in the world as V47M making a significant improvement to our 1984 score.
I have not been back since but St. Kitts will always hold a special place in my heart.