40 Meters was unusually quiet for me tonight. No neighborhood QRN and the background noise was a blissful S1. The electronic 20 over 9 hash was nowhere to be found.
I took the opportunity and ran with it; having a couple "chatty" ragchew QSLs and just overall enjoying the band on a rare noise free night.
Around 11:00 PM local time; or 0300 UTC (for those of you so inclined) I decided to take one more trip to the basement shack. This time I wanted to concentrate on the lower part of the band to hear what DX might be around.
TX5C was on 7.007.36 MHz, listening up about 3 KHz. They were working calls in an efficient, no-nonsense manner; and the folks in the pile-up actually seemed to be behaving themselves. There were a few misguided folks calling on the listening frequency which brought the instantaneous wrath of the pile-up police who immediately started sending "UP UP". Fortunately, the offenders knew enough to know what that meant and order was quickly restored.
And I got lucky ..... I think. I probably won't know for sure until the logs are updated sometime tomorrow; but the ops on the atoll did come back to me. And after sending my report, I did get a "TU"; so unless my call got screwed up immensely, I should be in the log.
I have worked Clipperton before, namely just about 8 years ago during the FOØAAA DXpedition of 2000. But that time, I had worked them with 100 Watts (QRO) and if THAT wasn't bad enough ..... last time I worked them (gasp!) on SSB! This time was cooler because not only was it QRP; but it was also CW (THE preferred mode!). And it would be entity #81 on my quest for DXCC QRP CW.
So I will be checking the logs over the next dew days; and if I don't see my QSO come up, then I will have to give it another shot. The DXpedition was rather loud on 40 Meters; so if I need to, I can try again to my heart's content until March 17th (when they pack up and go home).
I see the DXpedition is offering some neat stuff through Cafe Press. If I did end up working them successfully, I think I might treat myself to a Clipperton Atoll DXpedition baseball shirt.
73 de W2LJ
(who is beat and is headed off to bed)
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