The Quest for the Daily QSO

Have you ever been to John K3WWP Shannon's web page?  John has made at least one CW QSO on HF for the last eight thousand. two hundred, fifty-two days....in a row.  I have had the pleasure of working John in several of the NAQCC sprints and contests, I've caught him on Straight Key Night a time or two, and it is just incredible the QSO streak he has going.  Ivin W9ILF and I have been striving to make at least one QSO a day this year...so far I have failed..it's not as easy as you would seem to think when you look at John's record.  Things just get in the way sometimes, like work, family outings, unexpected visitors, and in my case...the Creeping Epazootie.  Didn't make it on the air last night because I was "sickernadawg", that's Hoosier for SICK but not only that, I was sleeping off this powerful elixir my doc prescribed for me.  I feel WAY better tonight, and will be returning to work tomorrow. 

So tonight, I got on the air about 6PM, moved to 7117 and started calling CQ.  The band indexes were not that hot (SSN:0 SFI:71 A:10 K:3) and the band seemed a little light on stations.  I think I called for maybe 15 minutes or so and was about to give in when I got called by Mike KG4MTN down in Tennessee.  Mike was running 5w into an end fed half wave antenna up about 30 feet and he was solid at 599 here in central Indiana.  He was running a Youkits HB1B QRP portable radio and man was it sounding nice.  He gave me a 589 for my puny 2w from the attic dipole, but I was ecstatic for that RST.  The QSB sort of moved in on us during the QSO but we traded SKCC numbers, rig info, all that good stuff.  It was a nice QSO.  Mike is retired and spends most of his time on HF running CW.  He also has a Elecraft K2, one of my favorite radios in the entire world. 

A quick look at the Reverse Beacon Network showed me with a very decent signal tonight, even though the band indexes were not showing that much.  This just proves my point...you won't know what the bands are like until you get out there and try them out for yourself.  So even if the indexes are bad, go try sending a CQ or two...you never know what you may end up with.  That's it for tonight, cashing in early and I have Tech to General Class tomorrow night, we have two students left to take the test, I hope they get it tomorrow night..so maybe I can get one in the morning.

73 de KB9BVN