This morning just after sunrise setting here drinking my coffee, (Molokai grown coffee that is) I had the K3 on and of course the P3. It was a little early for 17 meters to be open, but suddenly noticed a blip on the P3 way up the band, when I mean way up the band, I mean out of the CW portion where I work 99 percent of the time, I quickly tuned the K3 to freq and there was VU2NKS calling CQ on RTTY, I just hit the mode button and keyed the paddle and had VU2 in the log for a "new" one on 17, as I signed with him there was another blip on the P3 down a few KHZ, there was A65BR calling CQ, again a quick rattle of the paddle and he was in the log.
I have come to depend on the P3 more than any DX cluster I have used since clusters were originated. It shows me what is on the band without having to sit here concentrating on spinning the dial and manually checking. An insignificant blip can mean some juicy DX long before any one on the cluster has put it out and all the "cluster suckers" start calling. Its an excellent tool for a DX chaser. Since I am not a real RTTY operator either, I dont have to fire up a RTTY program on the computer, all I had to do was use the paddle for these short fast DX contacts. Works very well. Another interesting thing was when I checked VU2NKS info for his QSL route he is running a K3 also. I just had to mention this as seems a large number of the list inhabitants are more prone to frequent the list than use the radio on the air, try it sometime, you may find you like it even more with use than with talking about it. Oh yes all I have for HF antennas is a 80 meter dipole fed with ladder line to a Nye tuner, accounts for 311 DXCC countries with that wire now in a couple years. Happy hunting, thanks "E" for a couple of nice pieces of gear that are a real asset to this DXer. 73 Merv K9FD/KH6 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
