I love the sound of fluttery signals in the morning

All work and no play (during my holidays!) makes ON5ZO a dull boy, so a little DX’ing in time is needed. After the RRTC two weeks ago, I decided to leave the tower up. I even deployed the WARC dipole again so I could be QRV in the morning and at night before going to sleep.

Favourite hangout place of course is 30m where I’ve had my share of fun again over the last two weeks. I even worked two new ones. Macedonia Z3 and a SV2. Not on 30 but on 6m. I remembered that the broken and replaced WARC dipole had a low SWR on 50 MHz and I tried this on the WARC inverted V: sure enough, SWR 1.6:1. Probably this antenna isn’t much of a radiator on 6m but the K3 puts out 100W anyhow and both the Z3 and the SV2 were easily worked. Other than that, I haven’t heard a thing there.

Last week ST0R came on the air. I was QRV unexpectedly when they showed up. Worked ‘m right away on 40m where the operator was sharp and on point. Three hours later I worked ST0R on 30m where the pile up already was bigger. I tried to work ‘m on a few other bands in CW later on but the bestial pile up was hell and the split was too wide. I’ve witnessed some of ham radio’s darkest hours. One time I had the guts to listen on 14.195. There was someone broadcasting a recording of someone who read biblical texts. Even worse than on CW. And then all those useless bragging spots on the cluster, or the constant whining. I just don’t look at the cluster anymore and find myself a clear frequency and call CQ.

Last week I wasn’t active but I made a lot of progress in the UBA soft V2. Only normal, after so many hours of programming again. This morning I decided to get back on the bands. On 30m there was PA1CC. I would not call a PA anymore but ON7SS has me tied up in his prefix game. It makes me call stations I would normally not call anymore. So it makes me more active in terms of QSO.

I started CQ’ing and a loud fluttery signal from California was the start for what seemed a direct hotline to W6/W7. I worked over twenty loud to very loud stations from CA, NV, OR and WA. How I love the sound of fluttery signals in the morning! In between the W6/W7 there was TX, KS and some East Coast. Also an XE and an Italian portable in HC. Nice DX and a lot of new PFX! After fourty minutes the opening closed and since only EU called, I quit 30m.

I decided to look for ST0R but there was only 20m SSB and 15m RTTY. On 14.145 I could hear the DX and I only had to call two or three times. Logged 20m SSB. Then I could hear them loud on 15m RTTY. But my RTTY setup wasn’t working anymore – again. Like always, when I try to do RTTY, which happens only two or three times a year, the thing is broken. N1MMLogger prompted me to upgrade MMTTY. Then I got a carrier in stead of FSK. Somehow I managed to get it working thanks to information on the PA1M website. Then I looked for the stations ST0R was working, but didn’t hear anything. ON4BHQ told me they were having a huge split so I went 5 up. Soon after ST0R QSO #4 was logged…