Sunday night, I was tuning around 30m and heard 3B7C calling. I was going to call them just to see if he could hear me, but since I’d already worked him on 30m, I decided not to. Except for the pileup, 30m was dead, so I switched bands to 40m.
There, I happened to hear 3B7C again. Since I hadn’t bagged them on 40m yet, I jumped into the pileup. I gave myself 30 minutes to work him, and then I planned to QRT and check into the W8UM net. Well, 15 minutes into this exercise, they heard me!
I was especially elated as there were a bunch of really poor operators in the pileup. One in particular wasn’t paying attention to the 3B7C operator at all, and just blasting his call even when it was apparent that 3B7C was working, or trying to work another station. I hope someone has given that guy a talking-to.
As for me, I’m going to attribute my success to good karma, both for not trying to work them on 30m and for my good operating practice on 40m.
Keith Price, WA5LPW says
Dan,
Enjoy your blog. Glad that we worked CW a few months back.
Couple of questions about this post. I have yet to work any DX beyond Canada. For that matter I have yet to hear any. Where do you look for DX? Do they hang out in the lower portions of the bands? Also, you mentioned poor operators. Given the nature of your blog, what about a post about good operating practices. (I want to make sure I don’t fall into that “poor” category. I have been a ham for 2 years and a CW op for 1 year. Love it).
73
Keith