15 hours in the life of a ham radio operator...

Dave, KD3V writes:


Our Amateur Radio hobby has the advantage of having many different aspects all based on one thing... a radio that transmits and receives.



I just had a fascinating half-day (15 hours really) period (during which six hours were spent sleeping) and I had to tell about it as it entails 3 quite different aspects of ham radio.







While driving in Hollywood going in the general direction of home I was listening to the Maritime Mobile (MM) Service net on 14.300.







I checked in to inform the net control that a pirate attack in the Baja area of Mexico may be the reason for few check-ins from that area. Five minutes after our conversation he takes a call from a Maritime Mobile off Guatemala who is reporting an attack earlier that day that they were able to repel! I helped relay a piece of the info and then headed for a quieter hilltop location in case I could be of more help but there were other stations that were able to get the remaing info which was reported to the US coast Guard for a relay to Guatemala (if possible). The Maritime Mobile was going to return to port the next day but wanted a report as soon as possible.





Just 3 hours later while parking my car from a local trip and after listening to DX on 20M I decided to select a memory channel that had the UO-14 satellite band in it. The prior evening I thought I had made my first ever satellite contact (from the car no less!) but I had gotten the W7??? call wrong. It was about the same time of night so I took a quick listen and it was the start of a pass! So! I listened and called from my car and K6CCC, Jim returned my call! it was noisy at first but then the satellite came over the mountains for him (he is further west and needed a higher elevation than I did), and WOW, he was Q5. We exchanged reports, he told me he is recording this and would post it later that evening! SO NOW, I really had my first satellite contact, confirmed by digital recording no less!
The irony of this contact is that Jim is the son of my old private pilot flight instructor who is also a ham! I had met Jim under his prior call back in 1989.





That was episode two of this odyssey and for the third we go to this morning at 8am PST for my "long path quasi-schedule with ZS6AN and Steve W7TZ" only to find a few new and old call signs! We had a good round-robin QSO going and the strongest signal for me was from ZS6YI, Gary who was 20-30 over 9 into my helical whip on my 300ZX sportscar. Just before I signed I asked Gary to listen for a report while I had the 706 'G' power turned down to 'L' (about 5W PEP). He gave me a clean Q5 and actual S-2 report! QRP, LONGPath, Mobile! to S. Africa! All of this was from my quite hillside mobile resting spot about 500 meters from the Hollywood sign! ) This was all monitored by a ham friend in Carlisle, PA with his Cushcraft R-6000 into the Grundig YachtBoy YB 400PE




Now that is what I call FUN!

Just half a day in the life of a ham operator!


Dave, KD3V