I got the chance to get on the air for a short time this afternoon. I took the opportunity to spin the dial around the 10 Meter band. Around the 28.200 MHz neighborhood, I heard beacons from Mexico, Brazil and British Columbia in Canada. Encouraged that the band might be open, I continued my spin.
In the CW portion of the band, I was able to work CT1IUA with 5 Watts. He was 599 and I received a 559 in return. After that, for the heck of it, I traveled all the way up to the SSB portion of the band. Here, I heard CT1EHI booming into NJ. Again, for the heck of it, I pumped up the power to 10 Watts and gave him a call. He answered me! When he found out that I was in New Jersey, Marco asked me if I knew where Flemington is. Heck, it's about 10 - 15 miles down the highway from where I work. Marco informed me that he has some friends that live there, and in fact he's gone to Dayton with them a few times.
I don't do so much in the way of QRP SSB as CW has always been my first love. It's gratifying, though, to make a SSB contact using only 10 Watts and it's even more gratifying when that contact is overseas. Marco gave me a 5X7 signal report, too - not too shabby! You have to absolutely love 10 Meters when it's open - pure magic!
15 Meters was also open and I had a nice "chew" with N5XE, Carl in Oklahoma who answered my CQ. I also had a quick QSO with OX3XR, David in Greenland. I've worked David twice before, once on 12 Meters and once on 20 Meters, so this was a new band for me for Greenland.
On 17 Meters (I was doing a bit of band hopping) I ran into and worked OJØH/MM again. Last time I worked them, they were travelling the Caribbean. I have no idea where they were located this time. They were not as strong as they were last time; but not sure whether that was due to location or just how the propagation was.
When the bands are open and propagation is good - the most fun hobby in the world becomes even more so.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry, Why do you insist on "pumping up the power to 10 watts" while in the SSB mode?
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to see what QRP SSB can do drop to 5 Watts....then really surprise yourself and go below, say 1 Watt or 500mW's!
I have DXCC worked and confirmed with my old call (WA2OQJ) all QRP 5 Watts or less and all SSB... since changing my call to a much more CW friendly K2MIJ 5 months ago I just put entity 101 in the log last week again about 90 of them SSB... 72 confirmed so far.
My goal this time around was to work DXCC CW but while I have been concentrating more on CW I have found Phone op's more likely to confirm via LOTW...Whats up with that? My CW return rate has been very disappointing. Just 30 confirmations...
Anyway, Next time you fancy exercising the vocal chords...Park the KX3 in the 5 Watt position and prepare yourself to be amazed!
73/72,
Jim ~ K2MIJ