I work for an internet company in Indianapolis. On the first nice spring like day of the year we are all dismissed at noon and ordered to take the rest of the day off and enjoy the weather. Indiana winters can sometimes be brutal, so this little half day is always appreciated. Since I am on call this week, I can't really go anywhere so I decided to fire up the HW-8 and see what I can hear. WOW the 40m band is doing well today (SSN:23 SFI:81 A:10 K:3) despite the high A index.
I got on the air at about 5PM local, and the first station I worked was Tim K9SB over in Illinois. Tim was working the Novice Rig Roundup and we traded SKCC numbers and radio info. He was running a crystal rig at 40 watts and we traded 599 reports. I checked Tim out on QRZ and Tim is a Navy Submariner. I wonder if he served with my good friend /rick WB6JBM. Tim if you read this, thank you for your service! Anchors Aweigh!
After Tim I moved off 7055 and headed up to the old Novice territory at 7115, there is where I worked Perry W8AU over in my other neighboring state, Ohio. he was running a XTAL controlled radio at 50w, and we also traded NRR and SKCC info. He was 599 here and I got a 579 from him and a "WOW that 2w sounds GREAT" (emphasis all mine). From Perry's biography on QRZ I see is he also a Navy guy. Saaaaa-lute! Thank you for your service Perry!
Then, when we got done, I tuned down the band just a wee bit and called CQ CQ NRR a few times and Everett N0AIE called me back from Springfield SOUTH DAKOTA!! We traded 559's but SOUTH DAKOTA is great DX from here. When I have run WAS events in the past SD has been my LAST STATE more than once! I was jumping for joy, howling at the moon, and doing a major happy dance with both feet when we got done. Check Everett out on QRZ and you'll see he has a great collection of radio gear in his shack. So now I am up to eight in the logbook, and I hope to get a couple more in there before going to bed tonight...but it's dinner time...and we all know what that means!
de KB9BVN
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