Kildare Ireland EI3KG and a Few Locals.

This station (EI3KG) was another quick contact this evening on 30 meters. He was in Kildare Ireland. I've already logged this country but don't hear it often. I grabbed it just because I could.

Couldn't resist this Island on the Air station. K4D -- The Sand Island Lighthouse is on Dauphin Island. Apparently they use E-QSL; so I sent a request for confirmation.

Here's also a fun one which I worked earlier this morning. I think everyone in the world knows this call. The ARRL HQ station (W1AW) was being operated by W2IX. I've worked them several times previously but a first on 30 meters.

I love this 30 meter CW only band.....

Bosnia and Herzegovia E71A

Another nice 30 meter contact. Emil E71A was in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovia last night. He was an easy catch around 02:30 GMT. Emil is 4,882 miles from here and was putting out a very fine signal.

50 Feet of Random Wire

My best contact yet into Bulgaria LZ2NP was a few days ago in the city of Ruse. The distance is 5,183 miles and I used my new 50 feet of random wire for an antenna. I'm making a LOT of contacts on the 30 meter band now, and loving every minute of it.

This month (and it's not over yet) I've worked another eight DX stations at better than 1000 miles per watt. They include HA8BM in Hungary, LY5O in Lithuania, SP6EIY and SP7HOV in Poland, S57DX in Slovenia, UA2K in Kaliningrad, and OK1CF in the Czech Republic. My 1000 MPW contacts are now at 26. In addition to those, I've also worked CO2OQ in Cuba and HT9H in Nicaragua.

The HT9H and the UA2K were new DX entities for me. I'm up to 55 now.

I've also discovered a lot of QRP operators on this band and worked seven of them recently. Much to my surprise, nearly all have been NAQCC members!

 LY5O 

There's a few more days left in this month and every night I seem to work another good station. I'm being very selective now and trying to choose the best of the lot.

Thirty meters has become my band of choice.

The 50 foot random is allowing me to work the entire spectrum. According to the meter on the MFJ tuner, I'm getting less than 4 watts into the wire. My results seem to speak otherwise....

My Home Town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zc7g12rux4

Not a radio posting; but I'm so proud of this....I've always known it.
Charleston is a great place to live.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation

I've been extremely busy this month and therefore no postings for a long time; but I'm now happy to report that I can now work "all bands", since I've made some changes to the "shack"; and although my "new set up" is very "crude", it seems to be working well.

I still choose to keep my station "portable" for outdoor excursions and for this reason, I'll have to tolerate a rather unorthodox routing of a 50 ft. random wire. I've kept the Isotrons for 40 and 20 meters, but after doing a little experimenting, I've discovered that if I keep the "wire" stretched out and away from potential "rf sponges" it works pretty well!

I've been having a fun time with this, and it still leaves me with the option of being portable. I've put an antenna switch on the table and ran the 50 ft random wire through an old tuner.

My favorite band has now become 30 meters where I've found several QRP operators. Just this evening, I worked a "special event station" operating from an old Navy LST. Here's the link to the ship.... LST Memorial 325. The really neat thing about this contact was that I actually operated from this ship a few years ago when it was docked on the Ohio River. It's a long story, but an interesting one;  N8ZYA's QRP Radio Blog: Search results for LST

How well is it working?

I now have two more "1000 MPW" contacts into Bulgaria and Slovenia. The needles on the tuner say I'm putting out a little over 3 watts. I've also worked stations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Cuba.

I'm not going to have a lot of time for blogging the next couple of months, but for all those in Eastern Europe, listen for me on the standard QRP frequencies on 30 and 17 meters. The random wire, although not very sightly, seems to be doing a great job!

Puerto Rico on 40 Meters

I'm beginning to love 40 meters more and more every night. Especially since I worked another "southern" station last night. I heard KP4SJ in Puerto Rico and exchanged the basics. There's a big storm bearing down on them now but it didn't phase our QSO. Pablo had a good signal here in West Virginia.

Afterwards, I watched the International Space station cross West Virginia sky. The pass put it parallel to the Appalachian Trail as it sped up the eastern coast towards Maine.  I've seen it a couple of times recently but forget to take the handi-talkie with me. If there's any activity on the ham bands, it can be easily heard in the brief few minutes that it's visible in the sky.

Barbados 8P6BE on 40 Meters

Sometimes it's not always a bad thing when a person can't sleep well, and even more so, when you're a CW operator. I've found another of the "big advantages" of the Morse Code mode is that it can be absolutely "quiet" while playing radio and using a set of headphones. The wife, the dog, and two cats never heard a thing....

Around 2:30 am this morning, I stumbled into my radio room and spun the tuning dial towards the lower portion of the 40 meter DX band. I was hearing a few stations, but nothing exotic, and was about to try getting back to sleep, when I heard the unusual call of 8P6BE, sending fairly slowly, on 7053 MHz.

He wasn't strong, but crystal clear, and out there all by himself.

It was cloudy, rainy, and 74 degrees in Barbados as Hendy (short for Henderson) transmitted from his Tentec rig and a simple dipole antenna. We sent call signs and names back and forth several times to make sure everything was correct. I don't think he had ever heard of West Virginia and neither of us exchanged our cities.

This was actually a nice QSO and much more than a "handshake". I don't think I've ever gone south like this on 40 meters before. It was a nice nightcap to work this unusual station on the unusual band of 40 meters. We both decided to listen again in the early morning hours on this frequency.