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SSB interruptus

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I was racking up the contacts in the recent ARRL DX Contest SSB at the Oak Bay Marina. Conditions were pretty darn good. I was pumped. Twenty-five contacts on 10m was my goal. Here’s proof that I’m not prevaricating. My Kenwood 480 transceiver can be seen just beyond my laptop.

Two local amateurs (living about 150 yards away) decided to drop by… and interrupt me. Arghhhh! These guys (Andy VE7PT and Roger VE7AP) are great friends and we had delightful face-to-face QSOs; but why weren’t they chained to their radios!? I was missing contacts in Spain, the Bahamas, Japan…. Arghhhh!!! Again!

To compound my agony, I was working one of the many Brazilian stations, this one around 28.315 MHz when my booming 50 watt signal was flattened by Jim VE7ZO up in Bowser! About 150 kms away. I couldn’t believe it.

Clearly it was all a case of SSB interruptus.

73 Glenn VA7HC

(And yes, I made my 25 contacts LOL)

Half a DX Station

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Richard Fryer VA7AA/XE1 sent me an email the other day. Something about strange DX. Read it below.

…know you guys are really into contests, beams, towers and traditional ham related stuff but I thought I’d share an oddball strange DX contact I had recently… 

It was DX for me… but in reality only 1/2 DX … lemme explain… remembering I am here in Melaque Mexico… VA7AA/XE1.. I installed a new EFHW vertical for 20… good antenna and it also works fine on 10m  

Listening on 29.640 to the VE3MMX-R 10m FM repeater near Chatham Ontario… it comes in here every day, so it seems…must have a pipeline LOL… but all of a sudden GI0BQX in Belfast Ireland is heard calling… worked him “full quieting” as they say in repeater lingo, .LOL …him running 40 watts into a home brew vertical on his house roof. Me… an FT 891 100 watts.. so sorta the same antenna. So I worked half a DX station.. the repeater did all the work.  Somehow I don’t think I’ll be doin that too often….

Richard VA7AA/XE1