Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Pleasant Surprise!

It's always neat when you come home from work to find something neat that has arrived in the mail. Today there were two envelopes included with the bills and the junk mail. The first was a QSL card from Tony Morgan W7GO from Las Vegas, NV. I QSOed with Tony just recently and actually mailed him my card today! This one is special, as this confirms state number 49 in my quest to re-do WAS, this time all CW and QRP. The only one that's left is Alaska. Not bad for the bottom of the sunspot cycle, eh?

The other envelope was for the W2 QSL Card Bureau. Included were cards from HI8RV, Chikin in the Dominican Republic; and one from VY1JA, Jay in the Yukon territory. That was a QRP contact , too. There were also cards from the Turks and Caicos Islands and one from Martti Lane as EA8BH on the Canary Islands. The most "special" card, however, was from Luis CU2IJ in the Azores. This was a 2 way QRP QSO that we had back in April of 2004; and it was the first QSO that I had with my homebrewed Buddipole. I was sitting at the patio table in the backyard testing the antenna out, when I heard Luis calling CQ. I answered him; and for whatever reason, mistakenly thought he was a Cuban station. When I corrected myself and realized where he was; I was floored! 5 Watts from my K1 to a Buddipole that I made myself had spanned the entire Atlantic Ocean! Wow!

It's things like this that keep Amateur Radio new, fresh and exciting for me.

73 de Larry W2LJ

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