I had usual weekend stuff to do on Saturday and did not plan to operate in
the 160M contest at all. So I finished with running around and got back
home around 5 p.m. My wife was still out so I went downstairs and turned
on the radio, using the tribander to listen on 160 to see if I heard any
familiar calls. Right off the bat, just below 1.830, there was W4AN/W8JI
calling CQ. I figured what the heck and went outside to put up my elevated
radials, which took about 45 minutes. I went back to the radio and darned
if I didn't start having fun. From the little time I operated, conditions
seemed great. EU was louder than I've ever heard from my station on 160.
I got back on the air Sunday evening while my wife was fixing dinner and
again, got caught up in the contest. In fact I got caught up in it so much
that I was calling CQ Test and heard a station answer with heavy QSB. The
only letter I got was the first letter, "O." I figured I had another
10-pointer and asked him to repeat. He came back with a much stronger
signal and sent "Over." Then I realized it was 0002 UTC. Oh well.
The bottom line is, this was fun. I may give it a shot full time next year.
Low power:
171 QSOs
38 Mults
17 Countries
73,
Jay/K4OGG
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