Categories
Uncategorized

7O6T: ‘the grande finale’

7O6T is almost QRT. Yesterday evening I went into the shack, which is very unusual for an ordinary week day evening. I was talking to ON4BHQ and moaning about the missing 10m SSB contact. He told me the contact was in an updated version of the online log. Ah, sure it is. Yes!

I worked the ZQ prefix and a 5X (maybe a new one?) on 17 CW. Then it hit me: I still needed 7O on 20m SSB. Luckily they were active but there was HUGE QRM. Someone had recorded a QSO from a OH station and was playing it on top of 7O6T with the S-meter deflecting to S9+40dB! Ouch. This went on for several minutes with the recording playing in a loop. I was fascinated by the bestial practices of this QRM’er. Not only for the QRM itself but for the abuse of the OH call. The QRM came in from around 120°, which is also the bearing for 7O from my QTH. Then the QRM stopped and with a few calls I was able to log Yemen on 14 MHz phone.

I regret not having logged them on 40. There was a spot last night but the QRM was just horrible.  Jammers, simplex callers, cops – the whole shebang. I wonder what some of the callers in the pile ups think. There is absolutely no way they will ever work the DX if they don’t listen. That is their problem but they make it ours by keeping on calling. Since the QRM on the DX QRG made 7O6T disappear, I took some time to listen to the pile up. I’m starting to think some of the callers don’t know how to copy a dit or a dot.

I called it a day before becoming more cynical and went downstairs to join the XYL. Now that Yemen has opened the door for ham radio, I’m hoping there will be another expedition there for a major contest like CQ WW CW. I’ll fill the low band slots then. 7O is an easy path from ON on the low bands. I’m confident I’d pull it off in a WW CW.

Thanks and a tipping my hat to the 7O6T crew for 11 contacts.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.