And there it was. at 14,0299 a faint signal, but building. It wasn't that it was too faint, it was good copy except the swing was really odd. The call wasn't making sense. I hadn't heard swing like that before. He was calling CQ, I think. The swing was that off. No, he was calling CQ but his call was.. 9J 9J2 ? was that a 9J2B or 9J26. 6 made no sense. Had to be B, 9J2BO Ok I had the call right and he had no takers.
Nothing spotted either. I looked up at the map and didn't see it right away. I'll work him first and worry later. The prefix did not sound familiar.
I dropped my call. And he came back to me right away. We had to straighten out my call with his copy but after a couple tries he copied it. I was only running 90 W on a loop.
But we had a nice short QSO. He was Brian in Lusaka, Zambia. He said he'd been to Seattle before and I think he was talking about his station, I believe. It got difficult to copy the speed. I replied politely and tried to keep the QSO going but figured that there were several stations waiting to work Brian, I should try to wind it down.
OK this was a new one. All time new one for me. And on CW.
I was so excited, I tried to hold the QSO and maintain semblance of understanding. But I think he figured out soon that I was fumbling around trying to thank him at the same time I was giving him my information. I just sent out that I should finish it here and gave him a VRY 73 and TU for the QSO.
A card will go in the mail tomorrow morning.
I fired off an email to my club reflector for the spot and then I started hearing a flurry of calls to him but nothing on VE7CC cluster yet. As that little pile up started to groan a little, I moved up the band and heard another weak flutter signal and copied a M4O but the first letter was probably T. I might have mistaken it for TN not TM but anyway, I answered their CQ too and it was a quick QSO, they were a DX'p and upon looking up the QRZ they activated IOTA EU-32 Oleron Island just off coast of France near La Rochelle. Still counts as France, but an IOTA that I probably won't hear too often.
I put them in the log too and then went back to 14,000 and the band was not as easy to hear then.
Checking my email I noticed my friend Rusty W6OAT give me note about Zambia and that put a smile on my face. It was all this encouragement to do CW contests that is building my confidence and what a day -- a new DXCC entity in the log and tomorrow, Friday will be a SST contest to do.
The latest QST magazine cover message: "Fun in the Field". Fun is right.
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