In case you all find the following boring, at least go to the last
paragraph for the whole point of this email! The following is related
to Elecraft because it describes QSOs I've made mostly with my K2. It
is even more appropriate, as you will see if you make it all the way
through and to the end of this diatribe.
I was quite busy on the radio about one year ago, when the sunspots were
few, and sometimes zero. Lately I haven't been so active on the air due
to a variety of things, but certainly not due to the lack of sunspots!
I was pleasantly surprised to get an envelope full of QSL cards from the
8th Area QSL Buro via the mail today. These are the real thing, not
those eQSLs. These have photographs printed on card stock that feels
good in your hands and will be fun to look at many years from now. I
looked through them all and they were either for QSOs that I had while
HF mobile (DQ2006X for a special event station during the 2006 World
Football Cup, that is of course Soccer) or operating from home with my
Elecraft K2 at 5W (or less).
Some of the dates and QSOs looked pretty familiar, such as October 15,
2006 (QSOs with F6FHO for my DX multiplier on 20m CW and VA2SG on 40m
SSB), the weekend of last year's PA QSO Party when I operated from my
home QTH in Lehigh County instead of heading out to Potter County or
like this year to Mifflin County.
Another familiar date was November 11, 2006, the weekend of ARRL
November Sweepstakes Phone (QSO with VY2TT on PEI on 40m SSB). This
looks like quite the contest station which is available as a rental
property! Hmm, another vacation idea!
Not all my QSOs are during contests, of course, and a couple of my most
memorable DX contacts were also worked QRP with my K2 at 5W from home
with a Carolina Windom 160. One of them was QSL'd as HA7TM/HI9 on both
40 & 160m CW (I've noticed that antenna works best on those bands and
not so good on 80m, I guess it shows). My best long haul DX QSL card
was a QSO I remember well (oh, from April 2005, I thought that one was a
bit farther back in the logbook) on 40m CW early one morning before I
went to work, working grayline to the Fiji Islands and snagging 3D2NA on
Mana Island. It was especially memorable as I could barely detect a
signal on the frequency and as I continued to listen and as the sky
continued to brighten slightly I heard the signal level coming up and
out of the noise until I figured I had nothing to lose, gave a call, and
was pleasantly surprised by a reply! Hey, you never know unless you
try! There was also Special Event Station VC3O for the 150th
anniversary of the discovery of oil in Canada. This QSL has a nice
photograph of a drilling rig shack used to keep the men out of the cold
while drilling and then it is moved to the next location. It would have
made a nice antenna tower as well had radio been around back in the 1850s!
Okay, but I saved the very best for last. I hope you all made it to
this point. This was truly a nice surprise and it was the last QSL card
in the batch that I looked it, so was truly the best for last for me as
well. This is a callsign we are all familiar with, and it featured a
photograph of three things that are near and dear to all of us who read
this. The first item of note was young boy, obviously in training for
ham radio and hopefully a future generation ham in the making. The
second was an Elecraft K2 and the third was an Elecraft Hex Key! Oh,
the callsign, none other than VA3JFF/QRP, Jeff Hetherington, Contest
Manager for QRP-ARCI! Thanks, Jeff, for the QSO, QSO, and hopefully
for providing a future generation of hams to keep this wonderful hobby
alive!
72 to all those whom I've QSO'd, QSL'd and hope to work again, at the
bottom of the cycle to the top of the next!
Mark, NK8Q
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