AmateurRadio.com

Today was a holiday out this way in Canada I just relaxed today and for some reason thought I would give the radio a go again this afternoon. I have not had to much luck of recent with making any contacts...put it down to the conditions. 20 meters seems to be a good starting point for me and I tuned up the MFJ 1788 and spun the VFO on the K3 to see what the propagation gods would have me work. I heard 6Y5WJ booming in and I gave him a go and he came back to me with a 559 report. I was thrilled to make it into Jamaica considering yesterday I tried the NAQP CW contest for a short time and U.S stations were not even hearing me. This was a very short contact as he had a number of prospects waiting to contact him. I then just moved a short distance down on 20m and came across VO1DD from Newfoundland calling CQ. I came back to him and we had a very nice QSO until some threatening thunder storms started to roll in this way. Doug is from Heart's Delight and  was running the FT 1000 a rig that I had before my K3 and it's a fantastic rig and still very very popular. He was running 90 watts into a dipole antenna. With just these two contacts in under 10 minutes I am very happy to see the MFJ 1788 is doing a fine job with only the 5 watts I pump into it.  It's now time to get the steaks on the BBQ and relax.