Wow, what a day I had on the 17M (18MHZ) amateur radio band the other day. Was able to work several middle eastern stations, which are usually a real struggle for here. I even worked one on SSB (voice), which is even harder to do from here. I usually see the posted on the DX clusters, but when I tune to the frequency they are working on, I hear nothing. So to hear the same station twice in the same day, once on voice and again in Morse code, and be able to work them, was a pretty big feat. I didn't even have to fire up the AL811H amplifier to work the stations, just 100 watts out of my radio, into an R5 vertical up about 25ft at the base, was all it took. That is how good the propagation has been the last few days. Still hearing lots of European Russia, and other parts of Europe as well, but the Kuwait station and Afghanistan were the icing on the cake for me. as you can probably tell, i am still pretty excited about working those stations. got them all in the logbook, and ready for more.
On another note, finally decided to trade off that icom Pro-III that i have sitting around here. Not using it, so i might as well see what I can trade into. The radio has a stuck relay inside of it, that is beyond my capabilities to fix, so you have to use 2 antenna's to use it. One for transmitting, and one for receive. i probably could just hook up a xmt/rcv relay externally, but don't like to tie up 2 antenna's to us one radio. What a pita that can be. Especially since I more than likely will have to use the 40mEDZ, which is currently in use for the boat-anchor station.
And finally, just wanted to add that i finally was able to trade back into the Kenwood TS-850 HF radio. What a beautiful piece of equipment it truly is. Has the best receive of any radio I have ever owned, is really easy on the ears, has a great tone to it, and hears stuff that my older gear just doesn't. I also picked up a Drake 2B receiver, to use with the Johnson Valiant, although I don't know just yet if i like that radio or not. it has an odd tone to it, that i am having a bit of trouble getting used to. the static coming from the speaker has a bit of a gravely tone to it, that is hard to listen to for any amount of time. i also haven't quite figured out how to zero-beat it to the transmitter, so that i am listening to the same frequency that i am transmitting on. Wonder how many times i have called CQ and missed a reply simply because i was listening in the wrong place (LOL).
Ok, that all i have for you today. Thank for reading, and 73 to you, Theron
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