More snow today. This sucks.
A day for radio. Just bagged 8R1WA, a Guyana DXpedition. It was a mess because someone was on top of him contesting.
A contester was working the same frequency and screwing things up but someone jumped in there and got him to move 5 kHz down.
The DXpedition was 'working split' which means calling on one frequency and listening on another. In this case it was 5 kHz higher than his transmit frequency. Most ham rigs can do this easily.
Then I listened and when things thinned out a bit and the signal grew stronger I threw in my call and got picked out on the 4th try and worked him.
What's cool is that in seconds I saw I was 'in the log' because they had an online log in real time. I saw my call come up inside a few seconds.
As is often the case when I mention that I got confirmation that I was in the log in real time people ask me why bother with ham radio if there are other forms of communication available.
Simple. Ham radio needs no infrastructure. It's my black box to someone else's little black box directly with no cell towers, internet or wires. It's pure communication.
A few years back I listened to one obstinate jerk that wouldn't move. I went to the DXpedition website and sent the DXpedition pilot to have the station drop five because of what was going on. The pilot must have been paying attention because a few minutes later the station announced he was dropping 5. (Maybe someone else had emailed or called the pilot before I did. who knows?)I stayed on frequency to listen to the pileup.
In a few seconds the entire pileup of about 100 people crying out their callsigns dropped right on top of him. He thought that they were people answering his CQ calls and tried to work them. Of course they couldn't hear him. He grew frustrated and left shortly after.
After that I reset my rig and waited until things thinned out a bit and worked the DXpedition.
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