This never gets old!

I was able to head out to the car at lunch time for a shorter than usual QRP break. Work has been a bit busy lately, so today I only got about 30 minutes of free time, about 1/2 my usual lunch break.  15 Meters seemed to be hopping today. There were lots of loud, clear signals.  I worked W1AW/7 in Wyoming (again) and tried to break through the morass surrounding W1AW/KP2 with no success. I didn't want to linger and spend my entire break trying to bust through that wall.

Knowing I had limited time while at the same time noting that conditions seemed to be so nice, I decided to head on down to the lower part of the band to give calling CQ a try, for a change.  Much to my delight, I was answered almost immediately by Laci DL5JLC, who gave me a 599 signal report. Laci was running 100 Watts from a Kenwood TS-590 to a 3 element beam up around 35 feet. Laci reported that it was clear in eastern Germany (his QTH is near Chemnitz), but was around 44F (7C), while we were experiencing a relative balmy 65F (18C) here in NJ, with cloudy skies. We ended up having a pleasant 14 minute "rag chew" which was very, very nice as well as very, very satisfying. Laci proved to be a most gracious and welcoming QSO partner.

 Courtesy of DL5JLC and QRZ

No matter how long I do this, Amateur Radio in general and QRP in particular just never get old for me. It fascinates me to no end that only 5 Watts of RF energy can traverse the globe some 4,000 miles and can sustain reliable communications over that distance. Yes, I know that Laci's 3 elements at 10 Meters was the major part in making that a reality - but it still seems so very cool to me that QSOs like this can happen at all.

What a great way to spend lunch time!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!