Well the weather man says we have a big nasty late winter storm coming sometime tonight, ice, sleet, snow and then maybe a little rain forecast for the early hours tomorrow. I can not wait for summer to get here. Good thing we have plenty of edibles and lots of movies to watch.
Fired up the K2 tonight and tuned around on 15m, didn't hear a peep. So I moved on back down to the best band in the land, and parked on 7120 Khz. I threw out a few slow CQs and a few faster CQs from the straight key and got no takers. Just about the time I was ready to shut it down and go watch the snow fall, I heard a loud but somewhat slow CQ from KB5KGO. I threw out my call and he came back to me on the first try. Warren KB5KGO is an honest to goodness Novice license holder. Folks there are not many Novice licensees left out there, but Warren is one for sure. From his QRZ page I learn that he is about 68 years old, and lives on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain way down there in Slidell Louisiana.
Warren gave me and my 10 watts a 589 and I sent him a legit 599, he was running an Icom 718 to an end fed wire at 100 watts. He was making the trip like gangbusters, and the slight bit of QSB we had did not phase his signal one bit. Warren is probably the first real live Novice operator I have worked in a long time. We QSO'd at a blazing 7 or 8 words a minute. Armchair copy to say the least. If you get a chance to work KB5KGO, jump on it. Great fist, and great QSO. Since we went over 30 minutes, I printed him up a Rag Chewer award and mailed it off with my QSL card. Thanks for the great QSO and good old timey radio night here at home. I hope to work Warren again!
73 de KB9BVN
It would be interesting to know why he hasn’t upgraded his license. I’ve run into a few Advanced ops like that, but never a Novice (at least since the 60s).
ReplyDeleteHey Warren if you are reading this, I got your QSL card this weekend. Thanks and be sure to enjoy Mardi Gras!
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