It was a beautiful day here in Central NJ, It was sunny; and we had beautiful blue skies. The temperature ran up to about 72 Degrees F (22 C), and it was a bit breezy; but very comfortable.
But even better than that was that I got the chance to get out to the park near the work QTH during lunchtime. To maximize my operating time, I simply plopped the 20 Meter Hamstick on the magmount on top of the car. To my surprise and delight there were a lot of signals to be heard ... finally!
There was a powerhouse station coming through on 14.040 MHz. CT/DL1YD was coming through 599 +++++. He was working stations DXpedition style; so I decided to give a call. On the second try, I snagged him! I got a 599 report, and I doubt that I was THAT loud; but there were no requests for repeats of my callsign - so my signal must have been at least halfway decent.
5 Watts to a Hamstick made it all the way over the vast Atlantic Ocean to Portugal. Just thinking about that boggles my mind. From NY to Portugal is about a 6 or 7 hour airplane ride. My 5 Watts covered that distance at the speed of light. Using less power than the average night light bulb; and I communicated with another Ham on the other side of the ocean. How can you become jaded by that; or come to regard such things as "routine"?
After that, I called CQ up around the FISTS watering hole and had a nice conversation with Lloyd VE1VEI in Aylesford, Nova Scotia where it wasn't so nice - rainy and about 62 Degrees F. Signals were nice as we gave each other 599 reports. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay on with Lloyd for too long as I had to get back to work; but it was definitely nice to get two lunchtime QRP QSOs in the logbook.
73 de Larry W2LJ
Hi Larry,
ReplyDeletethis is DL1YD(back home)here on the keys...
YES, you were real S9 that time, believe or not. The doubts are on my side to be honest. I mean about the rig... ;-))))
Having not that tremendous pile up, it would be a real reg chew opportunity!
GL, CU 73 de Jara, DL1YD