We've got great sailing weather although it's a bit windy on the flight deck where I operate. The ship's forward speed coupled with a tough crosswind made tonight's operating real tricky because I had to hold everything down and still manage the key!

But RS-44 was a success by using CW. I couldn't hear the bird for beans on SSB, so tonight's CW run was encouraging. I'm hearing the U/V satellites a bit better than RS-44, but am still not doing well on those, so I may bring CW on the XW sats at some point. I was in a bunch of these grids a while back, and I know UT1FG has done a bunch of them too, so the next few days before the Canal will tell the story. The rarer ones are on the Pacific side, and I'd rather get these wet grids into several logs using CW instead of no logs at all on SSB.

Tomorrow's route is a southeast diagonal that will take us through FL16 and into FL25. (We'll hit the quad corner with FL15 and FL26, but unfortunately we can't stop for important stuff like grid squares!) I should be on XW-2A/D/F, AO-27, and RS-44/CW.

R/Jim Clary, EO

USNS Sgt William R Button

Tel:        850-549-0275, ext 4

E-mail:  james.t.clary.ctr@button.navy.mil

E-mail:  reo@button.navy.mil

E-mail:  button.comm@ashore.msc.navy.smil.mil

E-mail:  james.t.clary.ctr@button.navy.smil.mil