Ok, last night I worked Dusty, ZL2VS on 20m using the OHR100. He gave me
a RST 519, so he must be a good listener! I was using 5w and a sloping
dipole at 20 ft on one end, 6 feet on the other. The 20m band was
reeeaallly weird!
I made me think of the early 70's when we would have SIDs (Sudden
Ionospheric Disturbance) and the band would go dead like you just cut
your coax in two! It would take minutes to hours for signals to slowly
recover, and just before the SID, the bands would be DYNOMITE! (sic) It
was very weird stuff. I used to wonder if all that X-radiation was frying
our brains! Mutated badgers, for sure. Is that what happened to Nils? I
know some of you remember this if you were hamming then.
I then heard WC0K, Mike, in Houston. He was 599++++, and running an Alpha
871 and Icom IC756. He sounded like was across the street! I called him
with my puny 5w, and he promptly gave me a 599 also. Note, I had not told
him I was QRP yet. He didn't seem to mine, but he was getting tired and
went QRT for bed. We had a nice chat. He said I had a real nice signal
and clean keying.
Then JA3ZP, Yos, called Mike. He didn't answer, so I answered back. Yos
sent QRZ? a couple of times, and finally got my call, name, and QTH
correct. I explained that Mike had gone QRT 'cuz he was tired. Yos said
he would QSL via the Bureau, so we signed and I smiled. :-)
So it was an interesting evening. All of this occurred around 0230-0310
UTC. The 20m band seemed a little strange, both long skip and short skip
was present. There wasn't much of the noise that usually comes up as the
band starts to close, so maybe the solar event and corona ejection was a
factor, I don't know. Earlier in the day, WWV had reported a solar flux
of 81, K factor of 6, and est. A index of 1.
Who says you need a kilowatt to work some DX? Why, I even got a
respectable RST report from someone running a kilowatt +! With a crummy
low dipole! Why, if I had a decent antenna, who knows would happen? It
probably wouldn't be as much fun, tho'. I wondered what the kilowatt
station thought when I said I was running QRP at 5w?!!!! And he had spent
all that moola on his powerhouse station. Heck.
Hey! When is 15m gonna wake up? I can't wait for ol' Sol to get freckeled
again!
See you on the bands.........Can't wait 'til tonight to see what's in
store!
72,
Gary Surrency AB7MY
S&S TAC-1(40&80m) and ARK30, OHR100 20m, AT-11 (QRO and QRP)
QRP-L #571 Chandler, AZ (near Phoenix)Grid Square DM43BH
Az ScQRPions
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