Greetings to all,I may have what should be one of the most "footprint
stretching" DX QSOs via AO-40. A group of German fellows made a DX-pedition to
Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 2003. Their grid locator was NH87 and my grid was
DN81. I heard them only once and it was on a day near the end of their
operation. I was hearing a few fellows on the West Coast working them but I
couldn't hear a "peep" from the DX station. All of the sudden they were there,
Q5. I couldn't believe my ears! We exchanged the usual 5NN on CW as with most
all expedition signal reports. My Elmer, Joe, K0VTY, and I had often talked of
stretching the footprint but it never occured to me that I'd have the
opportunity to do just that. As I recall, there were less than 5 degrees,
according to InstaTrack, for me to make the contact before LOS at both ends. I
always blamed the giant Elm tree just accross the street from me for preventing
my hearing much that appeared on the low western horizon. After I!
collected my senses, I went outside and had a look at that "cursed" tree. To
my suprise my antennas were pointed at a "hole" in that tree no bigger than a
bushel basket. Obviously that hole provided me the one in a thousand shot I
had at working VK9CD on the 20th of Oct., 2003. I have been a DXer for over 50
years and I've had many memorable and lucky DX QSOs but VK9CD ranks right up
there near the top of my list. I wish that we still had a bird in orbit that
would allow such "thrills" but alas.......73 to everyone and we can continue to
hope.... Frank, K0BLT
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