It’s been very hot and humid here in SE Michigan this week, making me verrrry lazy. So, I almost decided not to head down to the Hands-On Museum and operate WA2HOM last night. I’m sure glad I forced myself to do it, though.
I got there about 5:45 pm, turned the rig on, and right away I could tell it was going to be a good night. IK2CIO was just blasting in at at least 10 dB over S9. Over the next half hour, I worked four other European stations, including OK7MD, DF6HA, and SN0H.
At that point, I decided to give 15m a whirl. Tuning around, the only station I could hear was JM7OLW. He was a decent S6, so I was sure that I could reach him. After swinging the beam around, I got him on the second try. If you go to JM7OLW’s QRZ page, you’ll note that he lives in Fukushima–yes that Fukushima. He lives just 35 miles from the nuclear plant that was damaged by the tsunami a couple of years ago.
After working JM7OLW, I still couldn’t hear anyone, but decided to call CQ. Boy, was I surprised when Dennis, KE7DZ, came right back to me. We had a nice 20-minute chat, which was a nice change from the short DX contacts.
After the contact with Dennis, I tuned around some more, and it appeared that the band had come to life. I could hear a bunch of stations in the Northwest, and then worked ZL1ALZ. It was nice to add another ZL to the log.
I guess the moral of this story is that 15m is open to the Asia in the evenings, at least lately. I was hoping to find a BY, but no luck with that.
At that point, Ralph, AA8RK, showed up. I gave him the operator’s chair, and we tried our hand at phone. After no replies to CQs on 15m, he QSYed to 20m, where we had a lot better luck.
We worked a bunch of U.S. stations on 20m, but the highlight–for me, anyway–was working KJ6HOT. Not only is this another station to add to my collection of QSLs from stations whose callsigns spell words, his QTH was very near to where I used to live in San Diego. Unfortunately, he was only using 5W, so we had to let him go after a short QSO, but that was fun, anyway.
I had a great time and Ralph had a great time. I just wish that I could get more of the local hams to come down and operate the station. That three-element Yagi really makes it a great station.
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