Band conditions were great….if I was a SWL!!!!!

For the first time in over a week I found time to wind up the Elecraft K3 and get on the air. In many blogs I have seen WSPR reports of great conditions on 10m, that would be great if I was retired and home during the day....but........I wanted to see how conditions were in the evening. I was very pleased I was able to hear no problem the DXpedition of 3B9SP on Rodriguez Island  This is a small island off the coast of Africa. They were armed with 3 Elecraft K3's and 2 Elecraft KPA 500 amp's. They had a very strong and clean signal here on 20m but the pileup was large. I was able with the help of my P3 to see the stations in the pileup 3B9SP was going back to but I still was not able to break the pileup for a contact.    I then turned it over to 30m which for me most evenings had been a very good band for contacts. I came across HK1MW in Columbia and again a very good signal here into VE3WDM. Columbia is not all that far from my QTH (ham radio speaking that is) and 30m has always been good to me. I gave him a go but there was nothing and the conditions were starting to change as well with lots of fading. Besides my goal for the last 1/3 of this year is to get the last 19 countries for my DXCC Jubilee award. I already have Columbia so it was time to move on. The cluster was showing A45XR out of Oman now I have not had to much luck at all with that region....no luck meaning never hearing them.
I would not advise this while driving but he did make the contact!!

  I gave it a go and there was Chris loud and clear!! He was operating split and with my dual receivers in the K3 I was able to hear both sides of the adventure. It was great the band was not at all as busy as with 3B9SP so I gave him a go...and a go......and a go......until in the wink of an eye he was gone just replaced with static. Well that was my Thursday evening of ham radio. I will say I did have a blast and did miss getting  on the radio.

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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