Does anyone have a better e-mail address for Mike (VK6HD), or can forward
it to him? My message to him bounced.
Hello Mike -
I just wanted to thank you for the longest haul top band qso I have ever
had from my home QTH. I only made 5 DX QSO's with my 100W in the 10 hours
of operating: KP2ZZ, ZF2NT, KH7X, D4B, and of course you, VK6HD. I
listened to your signal and you peaked about 20 minutes after our QSO.
Notice there were no DX QSO's north of my longitude.
I spent all day yesterday putting up and trimming the ends of an inverted
vee on top of my modest 40' tower. The tower is situated on a ridge line
at 8300' elevation overlooking the front range of Colorado.
Looking back at my operating from KH3 in '89-'90, I now realize how
difficult it is to make long distance QSO's on top band. My toughest QSO
was with Jim Neiger when he was at ZD8Z. His signal was so weak and would
fade completely out for 30 seconds, then come back barely readable. It
took us about 5 minutes to make it. I was mostly impressed with how
patient and cooperative in standing by all the contesters were during the
event. Most of my 160M operating was spent in CQWW and international DX
contests. I always concentrated on rate vs multipliers. What I didn't
realize was that my QTH, although distant from most other parts of the
world was surrounded by salt water and my QSO's were almost entirely from
the edges of continents. Zones were plentiful, but country mults were
rare. I now realize how difficult it is to work long distances on this
band. I should have paid more attention to offering a new country to the
deserving for 5 and 6-band DXCC, how selfish of me!
Now I'm hooked with top band. Even when I dropped into the DX window this
weekend, not realizing what I had done since it had been such a long time,
the DXers were very kind in letting me know about what I was doing. They
didn't pounce. It seemed such a nice open spot to attempt running
stations. I apologize to all you who may have heard me making a fool of
myself.
73,
Pete
W0RTT, ex-AH3C
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