For at least 15 years (perhaps more) I have been chasing Ross 9M2AX for a new one on 160m. For some reason, a QSO has eluded us.
>From VE6 Ross is 13,000km at 320 degrees AZ, and the path is usually skewed >southward. Every morning this winter season I have been at the radio RX for Ross, but in spite of fair-good reports from ops down south in AZ and CA, I have never copied him. For some reason, this morning his signal peaked up just before my sunrise. My tower was cranked down, so I had to wait for it to get to full height and the amp to warm up. After many calls and a few QRZ? Ross gave a 6 ?. A few more calls and he had my call, but gave me a VE6WZ ?? without a report. I responded with ONLY his report and made sure NOT to send my call again. I was getting quite concerned that I might lose the contact after I sent my report many times. Finally, Ross came back with a 339 and we completed the QSO. Our QSO was at 1452z, 10min before my sunrise at 1502z. Ross struggles with very high QRN in 9M2 so I am very grateful he was able to pull me out. Because I have waited so many years for this QSO, I wanted it to be as "pure" as possible, so I avoided any packet cluster "hints" that I was calling, and I did not acknowledge I was even QRV in the KST chat room. I must say that Ross is a true QRN-warrior to persevere through what must be painful RX conditions! I was TX with the 2 el Parasitic array, and listening in diversity. Here is a recording of our QSO. If you listen, you will understand why I was quite worried I was going to lose the QSO. This morning his signal seemed almost equal on the direct path, and the skew west path. In the left ear is the west 4 element BSEF Beverage (BOG) array, and the right ear is the Asia 2 el Beverage (BOG) broadside phased pair. (the clicking is poor internet packet dropouts on my connection to my remote 100km north of my home) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ot1RhA1Gim1VoHEw6u0QA3T7QShf9bCE/view?usp=sharing 73, de steve, ve6wz https://www.youtube.com/@ve6wz/videos _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
