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A contact from 23 years ago

A QSL card arrived  Friday not an usual thing for me but this one was almost a quarter century in coming!! The card was in an envelope on it's own most of the time QSL cards arrive in a stack of 50 or so from the buro. The card was from Louis N8LA and on the back of the card he apologized for the delay in sending me his QSL up to this point all was normal, then he thanked me for my QSL card. WHAT a QSL card I
have not sent out QSL cards (all electronic cards now) for over 10 years. Now I was just a bit confused...maybe this was a mistake....he must had copied a call wrong and sent me a card......Then I look a closer look at the front of the card..... this card was from 1989!!! To say the

The back of the card

The station 23 years ago

 least I was shocked. On the back of the card Louis told me he no longer lives in Michigan but St.Louis now. At the time he was running the Ten Tec argonaut 515 QRP at 3 watts. The antenna was 80m inverted V at 40 ft. I looked up Louis on QRZ.com and he still has the same rig the 515. He is an avid  QRPer with memberships with MI QRP # M-0078; QRP ARCI # 4508; GQRP # 5048; NAQCC # 2358; Flying Pigs # 1974; SKCC # 4327; Fists # 13757; 10-10 # 16161, VP # 868; Member of St. Louis QRP Society, Morse Telegraph Club, and ARCH Radio Club. I had hoped I kept my logbook from back then as I wanted to find N8LA in the log. I did find the log and he was my 26th contact in my ham radio adventures. I had  been licensed for just over a month at the time. My code would have been around 5-8 WPM as nerves would had play a roll in my coping. My rig was the Icom 735 the antenna was the Cushcraft R4, Bencher paddle along side the Kenwood AT-230 tuner. Now how cool is that!!

The log (N8LA at top of log) and QSL

Well it's hard to believe that it's been one full year of blogging for me. Seems just a short time ago I was discovering blogging never thinking I would have an active blog. So what has happend over the last 12 months of blogging. I sure have expanded my horizons with ham radio! Areas such as WSPR, QRPp, types of portable antennas, fellow ham's taking ham radio outdoors and the list goes on. Im just amazed that folks want to read the stuff I post. I was not sure what to exspect with blogging and were my blog would end up heading but over this past year I have been having a blast. For someone who really does not say much this past year I was able to squeeze out 110 post's. Well here's to another year of blogging.........CHEERS.....