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KH1 – Baker Island for a new one

Banner linked from official baker2018.net website

Gosh — very casually and almost by accident and also very easily I happen to work a so called ATNO: KH1/KH7Z (20m CW).

You know I don’t care about DXCC. And I take a long walk around the crazy mess such a very rare DXpedition causes. I simply don’t want to waste my time anymore with that ugly stuff.

5B DXCC: expensive wallpaper, bad investment

So I did not intend to work this DXCC which would be an All Time New One (ATNO) for me. Furthermore propagation sucks and this is as much over the pole as can be from here (bearing 0°). And I was having my hands full with the ON18FWC activity.

One day I ended a shift with ON18 and before shutting down I set the beam to the north pole and listened for 20 CW. They were there, S7 at best. But the pile up was more than 7 kHz wide and people just kept on calling and calling all over the place. This was exactly the reason I turned off the radio. And why chasing DX has a zero fun factor for me.

I didn’t really look for them on any other band. This time around with the sun being spic ‘n span from the dry cleaners’, the KH1 ↔ ON path is not an obvious thing. A few days later same scenario: I went to listen… Aha: the pile up was only two or three kHz wide and not so unruly. The DX called for a SP9 station that I could actually hear repeating its call and 5NN. I lowered my transmitting frequency just a tad and decided to try. Much to my surprise KH1/KH7Z came back to me. So all it took was less than a minute and sending my callsign twice.

That is with a small tribander sitting at 15m high and a shy 500W.

A few days earlier I got a text message from my buddy OT1A telling me not to forget Baker Island. I replied I couldn’t care less and I had no plans to spend time on that. I know he’s avidly chasing the DXCC program in all flavors but I don’t see his call in the online log…  ☺

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