AmateurRadio.com

In the year that I was a ham in Europe I found that there was always a fellow radio nut available to talk with. I am not picky, so when I wanted to have a rag chew I did it in any mode available (except CW, because my keying is still painfully slow) and on any band. I found the French and Norwegians the nicest to chat with, despite the language difficulties.

Here in East Asia the bands are rather empty, especially in the day time. A simple wire dipole won’t get you far if the sunspots are non-existent; you need something better. So I do feel a little bit lonely sometimes when I scan the bands and there is no one out there. But with the old CB whip on the balcony, 15 Watts to put into it, I do need some spot on the sun to get somewhere. Tonight I did get somewhere however: 10 meters was open to Europe and I had two successful QSO’s with France and Germany in psk31. Alas, only 599 exchanges. But 17 meters was also open and I had to smile when I heard VK4BX having a QSO in SSB with a German station. After all, I am BX2ABT and my Dutch call is PA2BX. So I called him and immediately felt like I was back in Europe: steady signals, good modulation and we both wanted to chat. Of course we both commented that the combination of B and X is the best in the world, no question about it. 10 Minutes later I felt  like a million dollars and the tiredness of the work-week was totally gone. What a great start of the weekend and all because of a 10 minute chat with Chris. Cheers, mate.

By the way, if you have had contact with BV100 then remember that coming Monday is the 100th birthday of the Republic of China, the reason for the special call. Over here we call it “Double-10 day” and there are a lot of celebrations planned. If you haven’t worked them yet then you have till the end of the year. Zai jian from Taiwan.