Saturday, September 23, 2006

Weekend goofing off


This is another short podcast. We'll get back to the 'standard' 99Hobbies format soon, but first, this one made me laugh out loud, and I wanted to post this while I had the chance.

This weekend I made a new friend, Jon, from Iceland. Jon has made over 600 QSOs during the Scandinavian Activity Contest JUST during THIS WEEKEND! ( see http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/sacnsc.htm ).

BACKGROUND: I'm tuning through the band and hear Jon ( http://www.qrz.com/callsign/TF3ZA ) calling CQ, so I give him a call. No sweat, easy copy on both sides. He answers me, and I log Iceland, both signals very strong. Very cool. I spot him to the DX network, and a few guys call him. Maybe three people call him. My guess is that most people think they would never be able to penetrate a pile-up for Iceland.

But Jon is calling CQ so often, and no one answers him, that I thought I should make a phone call and see if my friend Scott can work him. Scott lives in a condo, and he doesn't have the luxury of big antennas. In fact, he is not allowed to have any antennas that even would work on 20 meters.

When I called Scott today, he was in a meeting at work. But he answered, and actually went out to his car and gave it a try. He got Jon on his third try.

And then he went back to work.

I think we have our priorities set just fine, don't we?

Oh, and by the way, if you don't think you can make the contact, you should probably give it a try anyway.

73,
Dave
KZ1O

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