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| Transmitting with my wet noodle |
I was off work on Friday and in the afternoon I found some time to get on the radio, I was pleased to see conditions had somewhat improved. The bands most active for me were 20 and 17 meters. The MFJ 1788 loop was very good at picking up DX I heard but was not able to contact G3XOV from England his signal was a strong S8 but as I waited for him to clear the callers who were before me his signal faded to S2 I still tried but was not able to make the contact. I then came across a station who's call started with "Z" that letter always gets my attention. From these parts a "Z" call could be very good DX. The call was Z63MED very odd call I thought maybe a special event station, I looked it up on QRZ.COM and found out it was a station from Kosovo. This country is still a developing story when it comes to ham radio. It does not as of yet have DXCC recognition as it just became a country in 2008. For more Kosovo ham radio history go to
QRZ.COM and look up the call Z60A this is the call for the Amateur Radio Society of Kosovo.
Now for the exciting news…….I ended up only making one contact and it was with EG4GET and this I found out was a special event station in Spain and has to do with football or soccer as we know it here in North America. There are 20 special event stations you can contact and contact (from North America) with 5 gets you a silver award and 10 will get you the gold award, for more information follow this
link . So back to the exciting news…….I dropped the power on my K3 to 1 watt and made the contact with this special event station without really any trouble for a distance of 3,754 miles per watt! Looking back when I moved into the condo and only being able to use a small antenna in less than ideal conditions I felt my DX was going to be south of the boarder and that's it. I have come full circle to hitting over and above thousand miles per watt contacts. My
record for miles per watt at this location is still 18,470 per watt in the ARRL CW contest.
4 comments:
Hello Mike, I assume all contacts were made on CW? As you know I was on the air Friday as well. Though at your afternoon time I was sleeping I guess. I remember I did see EG4GET on my screen calling on 17m RTTY. But am not interested in special "football" stations. For you it was a nice opportunity to make some nice DX. There seem to be some new amateur stations/calls from Kosovo. Not valid as DXCC though but it's a nice oddity. 73, Bas
Hi Mike and again congrats. on another QRPp contact. You seem to have your MFJ loop antenna functioning perfectly now. 73 Dick
Good evening Bas, yes it was CW and I was thrilled to make the contact with only QRPp power. The Kosovo call was very different and it got my attention but I was not able to make the contact.
Mike
Good evening Dick, yes for sure the loop is working great now it has taken some time to get used the the tuning and placement on the balcony but all seems to be good now.
Mike
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