Somebody’s gotta call CQ

I know that it’s good operating practice to listen before calling CQ, but somebody eventually has to do it for a contact to take place. Yesterday afternoon, for example, I was tuning around on 20m CW listening for CQs for at least ten minutes. Not only did I not hear any CQs, I didn’t hear much activity at all. I thought the band was dead, but decided to call CQ anyway. When I did, a KA3 came right back to me with a 599 signal!

My point is that even though a band may sound dead, there’s a good chance that it’s not. Go ahead and call CQ. You never know who will come back to you.