My musings on Ham Radio … and stuff!
Last night, I worked Guadeloupe on 80M. That was a new one on that band for me. I even found a couple of stations on 15M, too … Clint, NW5P in Texas, and WP4AZT, Jose, in Puerto Rico. All in all, a nice evening, playing on the radio. I’m going to try and get a 40M inverted vee up this weekend, and see if that works any better than my non-resonant vertical.
73 de Dick N4BC
Scored a new country on digital last evening … South Africa. Ten watts to a vertical on JT-9 mode. He copied me at -15 DBm on 20 meters, and he was much stronger. I’ve seen him on several times before, but had no luck connecting with him. Now just waiting for a LOTW confirmation.
The bands were not especially hot last night … as a matter of fact, there was not much happening other than stateside and European stations. But there he was … and relatively strong, too. That’s what’s so exciting about ham radio. “The thrill of the hunt,” if you like.
I’ve tried listening in the early morning to see what might be happening, but no luck so far. For instance, this morning at 4am I tuned the bands and heard ZILCH! Not so much as a stray CW signal that was readable. I’ll keep on trying, though. One of these days …
73 de Dick N4BC
I recently received an email requesting a QSL from a Russian station for a contact when I was VQ9RB, on Diego Garcia. Even more interesting, I got a card in the mail from a Brazilian station for one of my Seychelles cards! Needless to say, I no longer have any blank cards for those QTHs. They were all used up or lost in a move many moons ago.
So, necessity is the mother of invention, they say. I searched the OfficeMax location here and believe it or not, could not find any card stock in the weight I was looking. So, Amazon Prime to the rescue. I ordered a 200-sheet pack for about ten bucks, and will roll my own. Microsoft Publisher and the ol’ laser printer should work just fine. The trouble I go to for you guys out there still working at increasing your DXCC numbers :-D.
Remember, the final courtesy of a QSO is the QSL. If I can, through some earthly process, supply you with a needed card, I’ll take care of it. I have been there, guys! My pleasure!
73 de Dick K4FTW (ex-VQ9D, VQ9D/D, S79D, VQ9RB, G0/WB4YZU, WB4YZU, ad nauseum :-).
So … the CQ Worldwide CW is done for this year. I spent a bit of time participating, not so much to run up a big score, but more to catch a few new ones. I DID catch a bunch of new ones. I think the most surprising was Indonesia. He was just calling CQ … no pileup, no takers.
I uploaded my log right after the contest to LOTW, and checked today (Monday). Lots of band and mode confirmations, and 5 brand-new countries confirmed. Wow … that’s efficiency! Makes me wonder what the rest of the week will bring :-).
I found that even though there was lots of action, I kept my blood pressure under control. If I couldn’t bust a pileup with my 100 watts to a vertical, I just went away and worked somebody else, returning later and maybe working them … maybe not.
All in all, it was a fun and productive weekend. I had 280 QSOs and really enjoyed myself. Looking forward to the next one!
73 de Dick K4FTW