Carl,
Congratulations on making your first DX contact, and the unusual conditions
under which you made it. My first DX was a VE in Toronto, while I was
living north of Boston. Not nearly so long distance as Belize (which, I
think is the V3 which equates to the VP1 from an earlier post on the
reflector this morning).
When you get to your new QTH, if you put up an 4 element beam, as the OM
from Belize has, your Scout will sound like a kilowatt, too. You could
even turn it down to a couple of watts out and get most all the dx you
want. Wish I had one of those antenna's to go along with my Ten-Tec Rig.
Wishing you many more fine dx contacts in the future.
Pete, NO2D
(Formerly a denizen of the Northern New Jersey hills country, and now a
resident of the relatively quiet DX world of Pewee Valley, KY.)
At 11:08 1999/02/24 -0500, Carl Hyde wrote:
>
>Made a great contact last night from southern New Jersey to Belize on
>twenty meters with my Scout. The only reason I'm sharing this is that I
>just got my General Upgrade a few weeks ago and am in the middle of
>moving so all my big radios and antennas are in boxes in the storage
>unit. But I took four Slinkies and a home brew 9:1 Balun and put a
>slinky dipole in the attic. I've been using my scout just for code
>practice and 10-40 meters. Well I heard this guy booming in last night
>on 14,225 and for the fun of it I dropped my call letters and he came
>back. He was running a Kenwood into a 1.5kw amp into a four element
>beam and he gave me a 579 signal in Belize. When I told him my radio
>was a TT Scout running about 40 watts into a four slinky dipole he
>almost crapped. So chalk another one up to the great little scout and
>good propagation. Must make the guy think " I spent all this freakin
>money and this guy's running 40 watts from a 500 dollar radio and a ten
>dollar antenna" He was also my first DX contact. Can't wait to get to
>the new QTH next month and get the Paragon back on the air. 73s
>everyone. I don't have his call here at work but he will be in Belize
>and was making a regular schedule on 14,225 at about 0300 UTC. He said
>he will be there for another couple weeks.
>
>--
>Carl Hyde
Amateur Radio Station NO2D
Pewee Valley, KY
http://members.iglou.com/pinskeep
Ask about my free Linux Morse401.tgz CW program
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