Last night was an interesting evening.

I have a pait of wire antennas I cut earlier that afternoon, one is for 20 meters and the other is for 40. These are simple end fed wires specifically designed for the PRC-320 which  I hope to have running at Camp Perry this summer.

The 40 was a little too long to work in the front yard easily so I ran the 20 meter wire up a tree via the slingshot and paracord method. I set the antenna tuner knob dead center and then set the load and range to the proper settings, turned the rig on, set it to CW and keyed the handset and the needle jumped practically up to the peg.

I clicked around a bit on the 20 meter band and inside of ten minutes managed to QSO 2 different hams outside of London AND check in on YLISSB to net control in Wyoming. WOW!

One of the Brits gave me a 5x5 signal report and I gave him about a 4x4 which is wierd. I was running a mere 30 watts and he was running 700! You'd think it would be the other way around.

Later I tried to tune the rig on 40 meters and the rig would not tune on that length of wire which sounds odd but random but I can't tune 60 meters on a 40 meter length of wire.

A younger woman came walking by and saw me out there with the set and asked me what I was doing and I told her I was yakking with some guy in London. She asked me if I could reach Netherlands and I told her I had worked it a few days earlier. Seems she was born there and has llived in this country since about 2004 having married a Yank. Her mastery of American English fooled me. She sounded like a native.

We yakked and I found out that the Dutch to this day do not like Germans very much but still love Americans because we ran the Germans out in '45. Years ago I found out that the people of Normandy feel the same way when I was sent there on a brief army assignment. Generally speaking I do not like the French very much but the truth is I think it is probably Parisians in specific as most of the Normans I met were wonderful.

Anyway, the Dutch celebrate a 2 day holiday,  the first is Memmorial Day and the following day they celebrate Liberation Day and I think it is on 4-5 May but I am not sure.

I have a QSL card from a Dutch operator and it was interesting to note that when I sent him mine I enclosed $3 to cover postage which someone told me was fairly expensive. A couple of weeks later I got back a nice QSL card and two of my three bucks back. Go figure.

Anyway any time I get a good DX QSO on the PRC 320 and a chunk of wire it is a good day.

Maybe today I'll make a run to a hilltop somewhere and test out the 40 meter wire I cut.

I just thought of something. Today is Saturday so I can check in to the Moose and Squirrel net. I ought to as my picture graces the first page of the M&S web site.

Anyway, Happy Satiddy mawnin".







my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/