Other times, you have to be lucky, or just at the right place at the right time. That was the case for me, yesterday. I was down in the shack, twiddling the dial (no pandapter in the W2LJ shack) on 10 Meters. It was mid-morning, and I was just curious whether or not I'd be able to hear any signals. There on 28.050 MHz was 9J2BO calling CQ - without any takers! Admittedly, off the top of my head, I had no idea where 9J2 was. But is sure as heck wasn't familiar, and if it's not familiar, then it's probably rare. So I dived in with all 5 Watts and gave a call. 9J2BO's signal was loud enough where I thought 5 Watts would be enough, and it turned out I was correct. It took one repeat, but he had my call!
We exchanged signal reports. I gave Brian an 599 and I received a 559 in return - not bad for 5 Watts to Africa (Quickly inputting 9J2BO into Log4OM informed me it was Zambia. Hot dog!). Then the QSB kicked in (big time) and shortened our QSO. I cheated a tad and kicked in the afterburner just to make sure that Brian heard my final "TU ES 73", but the previous 99% of the QSO was carried out at 5 Watts - so I'm counting it in my personal QRP tally.
A few seconds later, I heard Brian calling CQ again, and then he just faded totally into oblivion and I didn't hear anything more on 28.050 MHz. Not him, nor anyone else trying to call him.
Right place at the right time. That's all it took for this ATNO!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Congrats Larry, 10m is the place were most ATNOs can be worked I think. But indeed you have to be there to work the DX. And you did it just at the right time and place. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteGood morning Larry, it's a great feeling when you hit the window and it's wide open. Timing is everything and sometimes just spinning the dial is the way to go. Congrats on the contact.
ReplyDelete73, Mike