I was listening around the QRP watering hole on 20 Meters, when I heard a pretty loud station calling CQ. I answered and had a short QSO with Oleg UR5FA/MM who was running QRP also. He was using a Yaesu FT817 at 5 Watts to a Windom antenna. He was a good 569/579 and I received a 559 in return.
He gave his location as FL97. A quick look at the Maidenhead locator available at the ARRL Website allowed me to see where that is - in the North Atlantic, about 1/3 of the way between Florida and North Africa. Talk about a ground plane!
The picture above was provided by the program DX Atlas, and according to the ARRL Maidenhead locator, FL97 appears to be towards the eastern edge of the grid.
Now that's just something that doesn't happen every day! Not only did I get to work a Maritime Mobile station; but he was also a QRP Maritime Mobile station. How cool is that?
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Hey, that's indeed pretty cool. I had some contacts with /mm stations, but never with a qrp/mm. QRP is more than 5 Watt: Small is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHave a look at my blog:
http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.com/
72 de Hajo (DL1SDZ)
Radio is always full of surprises that's for sure Larry.
ReplyDeleteHi Larry, I remember my first HF contact was on 40m USB (!) with a russian mm. Since he was using the ships equipment he wasn't able to get on LSB. He was not a QRP station. So I think your contact was very special indeed. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteHello Larry,
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice your entry earlier but it's nice to see this guy in the log book.
I've worked him twice now in the last few days. Also share the same enthusiasm over working another QRP Marine Mobile station.
He's very weak here in WV and I could have missed the grid square. Still a very exciting contact for me too.