Playing Radio

I finally took the opportunity to sit down behind the radio to do some operating today, which is something I haven't been doing as much as I should. In the late afternoon, I got some free time and did some listening on 20, 30 and 40 Meters.

There seemed to be the ever present opening to the Caribbean; and on 20 Meters, I was able to work Derek J6/VE3CZF. He was holding court on 14.0079 MHz and was really running stations. I gave him a 599 and got a 579 in return. A QRZ look up has revealed that Derek has lived in quite a few location on this globe of ours and just recently permanently settled on St. Lucia.

J6/VE3CZF QSL courtesy of QRZ.com

That's one beautiful view, isn't it? It would definitely be not hard to wake up to something like that every morning.

30 Meters was quite noisy; and I was having trouble hearing any but the loudest stations. Still, I got to have a very brief QSO with Rey CO6RD from Cuba. Again, the mojo to the Caribbean was holding true.

I heard Gibraltar on 30 and 40 Meters; but was not able to break either pileup. It seemed both stations were favoring QSOs from Europe, which they were probably hearing better. I did hear them work a few loud state side stations; but my QRP signal was probably getting lost in the sauce.

If I get a chance this evening, I will melt some solder on the PFR3A. With this cold snap we have been enduring, it's been pretty cold down in the basement!

73 de Larry W2LJ