Author: Nick

First QSL

My first HF QSL goes to W1AW Portable 7 [1] in Oregon on 7.170.0Mhz. Contact made at 2014 September 07 at 0349 UTC. The W1AW portable calls in 2014 are celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the ARRL [2] and every state gets two one week whacks at a portable call.

Tonight’s station was located just west of Portland, Oregon. That makes it about 1500 miles station to station. So happy to know my piddling 100 watts off a vertical antenna without grounding radials can reach that far and get a 5/9 RST [3].

[1] http://www.codxc.org/new/page.asp?content=w1aw
[2] http://www.arrl.org/centennial-qso-party
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RST_code

Unbalanced

Gots to get some radials out on the antenna! Listened to Brazil (PT7ZT [1]) and if I heard it right, Armenia (EK something something something) on the 20 meter band tonight. Couldn’t do a damn diggity about powering through the pileups around the Brazil station because the antenna isn’t properly counterbalanced with ground radials.

The best I’ve gotten so far is Georgia (as in Atlanta) although it wasn’t a proper QSO since I was only checking into a net. Still looking to make that first real contact on HF and getting an awesome QSL card for my troubles.

[1] http://www.qrz.com/db/PT7ZT