Was talking to Don K4KYV and Tim WD4TC on the 707 last night, 3885. I gave up on Eric KK4TVR, about 150 air miles, after the band just slammed shut lickety split on short skip. Weird stuff, this propagation.
Wonderful Easter surprise: 160 was excellent this a.m. No QRN and the band long. Worked KU4K on 1880, Ervin down near Memphis running 25 watts to a horizontal loop at 40' and he was armchair copy up here. Told me I was 30 to 40 dB over S9. Normally 25 watts to a low loop would be in the noise here. The band was HOT.
Not now but last night we had a nice QSO on 40m with Russel WB3FAU in Erie PA, and Steve, KB1VWC in Falmouth Ma., before the static crashes made it impossible for me to continue. Great audio and decent carriers from both. Russ was using his Globe King 500B and Steve was running his Apache TX-1. I was running my Turbo HT-40 SG transmitter into an Amp. Phil
40 meters daytime Sunday, called CQ-AM on 7282± and heard a station on slopbucket trying to answer. I could 'hear' my calls. Ignored him, kept calling CQ-AM. Finally, a badly adjusted AM signal came back, WA4CNI, and we had a nice QSO. Helped get him adjusted, he acknowledged he had tried to answer me on ssb, and I was cordial saying some modern transceivers are a little tricky to set carrier/audio. When I answered with what I was running, I said it's a 72-year old transmitter, cheerfully adding "probably older than you." Turns out he's "92 and six months" had served in WW2, and gets on the air every day to keep in touch with a couple of nets. Wow, was my face red. We talked about his time in the South Pacific, where also my late father in law had been deployed, and time in Norfolk, an area where I had been in the 1960s, with my friends all being Navy brats. I've always enjoyed spending air time with senior ops like Dean turned out to be, and I was reminded --yet again-- to be gracious when people need time to figure out "AM" so they can have a chat.
Just got off the air with Timtron and had one of the biggest belly-laughs I've had in a long time; his idea about repurposing the chassis of a BC1T transmitter after relocating the innards to a 6' rack. Gut the interior. Keep the interior dummy load red light. Cut a hole in the floor. Install a toilet and plumb. Whenever you go into the new "can" and close the door, the red light will come on and you can look out the little triangular window.
