DX ragchew
A couple of days ago, I had a rare experience—a ragchew with a DX station. Wolf not only told me about his station, but a little bit about his town and the area he lives in. As you can see from the photo at right, it’s quite a lovely place.
How can you tell if a DX station might be up for more than just a quickie, canned QSO? Look them up on QRZ.Com. If they have a lot of information—written in English as Wolf has—then there’s a chance that they might be interested in a ragchew.
New ham’s first QSO
On Monday’s 2-meter club net, I got a call from Jack, KE8SWM. He was a bit weak into the repeater, and it took me a couple of tries before I got the call right. And even then, I wasn’t sure. You see, I looked him up on QRZ.Com, but the call wasn’t in the database. Jack’s new call had only been assigned that afternoon!
So, as it turns out, I was his first contact. I’ve dispatched a QSL card, also his first.
Bands heating up
The bands have been pretty hot the last couple of days. I’ve worked a bunch of Europeans, including DJ7PW as described above, on 30 meters.
Tonight, 40 meters was was really hot. At right is a screen shot of my spots earlier this evening. What’s remarkable about this are the number of 30+ dB and 40+ dB spots. The band is still looking good here at 0230 UTC.
If this keeps up, we could be in for a pretty good fall and winter.
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