Nothing like a few good contacts to lift your spirits

I bowl on Thursday nights. This last Thursday, I was terrible, bowling 60 pins under my average. When this happens, I’m generally in a lousy mood. I got home around 9:45 and decided to turn on the radio. I’m glad that I did as the four contacts that I made over the next hour really lifted my spirits.

My first contact was with Mark, W6DVO, near Eureka, CA on 40m. Because of the way my antenna is situated, I don’t usually do well to the west, so I was very surprised when I got Mark’s call. Signals weren’t strong, but we managed a short QSO. He was surprised that I was in Michigan, not California.

My next contact was with N1A, a special event station commemorating the 145th anniversary of abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico. I was really surprised that slavery existed in Puerto Rico after our Civil War. For more information about the historic facts of the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico,  visit https://enciclopediapr.org/en/encyclopedia/abolition-of-slavery-1873/. N1A will be on the air through tomorrow, March 26, so you may still be able to work them.

My third contact of the evening was with 3C0W! I finally managed to contact this DXpedition on 40m after a few half-hearted attempts on 30m. I was actually kind of surprised that I didn’t work them on Tuesday night on 30m. Band conditions were good, there wasn’t that big of a pileup, and I usually do pretty well into Africa. Thursday night there wasn’t much of a pileup, either, and I managed to get them after only about 10 minutes of calling.

It’s amazing what these guys do on DXpeditions. This particular group of Latvians made 30,323 QSOs as 3C3W (Equatorial Guinea) and 54,267 QSOs as 3C0W (Annobon Island). They began their operations on February 28 and ended just yesterday, March 24. So, I just snuck in under the wire.

At that point, I moved down to 80m. After a couple of CQs, I got a call from KD8YQX, and we had a nice 20-minute long ragchew. This contact was notable for a number of reasons:

1. Jim is only 28 years old. (I rarely work anyone under the age of 50 and often joke that it must be in the rules that you have to be at least 50 to operate CW.)
2. He lives about a mile from where I grew up.
3. He got his license at the same test session in Dayton as my friend, Thom, W8TAM. (Thom’s original call sign was KD8YQZ.)

This contact was a perfect example of near vertical incident sky wave (NVIS) propagation. Jim, who lives less than 40 miles from me mentioned that his antenna is only ten feet off the ground. My Cobra multi-band doublet antenna is a little higher, but I can definitely tell that’s it more of an NVIS antenna than a DX antenna on 80m. That’s what really enabled us to make the connection Thursday night.

I mentioned to Jim that I would be attending the General Motors Amateur Radio Club hamfest on Sunday, April 28, and invited him to stop by my table and pick up one of my “CW Geek” buttons. I hope he does and that I get to meet him in person.