Last night was pretty active on the bands. The lower bands were pretty noisy, but conditions were good on the higher frequencies. I could hear a lot on six meters, but my vertical just won’t load properly there. I’m going to at least put up a dipole for six this week.
As you can see, there were contacts to be had for the picking. I definitely stayed busy. I was sort of keeping an eye (ear?) out for the Baker Island DXPedition, since they were working FT8. I did see stateside stations calling them in Fox/Hound mode, but never saw any of the DXPedition’s transmissions on my screen.
Everyone laments that “the bands are dead … Woe is me!”, but as you can see, they’re there. As an example, twelve meters … there was not a single signal in the FT8 portion of the band when I checked. So, I said “What the heck … let’s try a CQ and see what happens.” It took several CQs, in fact, but eventually I had a mini-pileup going … two or three stations coming back to me on top of each other. Dick’s sage advice #1 — “If you’re gonna’ catch fish, you gotta’ put a line in the water.” Everybody listening = no QSOs!
So, the moral of the story is … put a signal on the air! Fling yourself out there! “CQ, CQ, CQ … This is <you fill in the blank>”. Be BRAVE! Any mode … Any band. JUST DO IT!!!!
73 and Good Hunting de Dick N4BC
