Monday,, Dec. 18, 2023
I’ve been relatively active on the bands of late, though mostly on my CW traffic net each night. Being in Kentucky means that I don’t really have traffic to handle — at least so far.
Before the “Fall backwards” off DST, I was working some decent 10-meter DX, and hearing lots of JAs, VKs and ZLs. They were working mostly West Coast and Northwest U.S. stations, all of whom I could hear louder than the DX stations.
I worked a few stations during the recent 10 Meter DX contest as well. I enjoyed that.
I learned a long time ago that when 10 meters is open outside the U.S., you should check for stations up above 28.5 MHz. And I hit paydirt often.
One evening, there was a group of three JAs in a roundtable QSO. A West Coast ham tuned across them and broke in — and they were delighted! They had no idea the band was open, but the same stateside ham worked each of the three JAs, and several other West Coast stations lined up to work the trio. I yelled my guts out trying to be heard, but it wasn’t meant to be. Signals weren’t just strong enough.
I copied the mail until stateside stations quit calling. Though I don’t speak Japanese, you could hear these guys marveling at their QSO being broken up by DX stations stateside! They got quite a kick out of it. Don’t blame them!
I’ve been listing items regularly on eBay and having some luck selling items. Next to go to eBay is my Yaesu FT 817 QRP rig. Its a great little rig, but lacks the CW filter — is quite expensive. It transmits and receives fine, but I have several QRP rigs with DSP and receiver quality that surpasses the little Yaesu.
My wife took my black background drape I was using when I shot my eBay pix, and I won’t get that back until after Christmas (she’s using it to cover the stuff in the corner behind our Christmas tree).
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK … SK … (dit dit) ….