PE75FREE SO2R update - growth

Probabely no one has noticed but I managed to get 2 stations on air now with FT8. Both with about 40-50W in the same time slot on 17/10 or 15/10 meter bands. It gives the opportunity to work me on 2 bands at the same time. More chasers can benefit. I don't have any band filters but since the transmitters are TXing in the same time slot there is no problem at all.

At first I tried the FT-817 as second TRX but 5W didn't give me much response. So I managed to put the old IC-706MK2G in service again. The interesting thing is that I'm able to do some 2m FT8 as well. In theory I could do 70cm but the radio has too much frequency drift there for digital modes like FT8.

Updating the PE75FREE log, I crossed the 3000 QSO mark thursday evening. Most QSOs are made with FT8. However I try to do some SSB/CW as well. Hope to have some time for that in the weekend again. I managed to work 85 DXCC now.

As a matter of fact I'm on 2m and 10m FT8 right now. 10m had some interesting DX with J69DS from St.Lucia and W9RF from USA. Almost had a QSO with W5I from Texas but he couldn't decode my signal anymore. 2m FT8 was on my "to do list". I happen to know a station at the other side of the country who just has a new 2m antenna (8 el. LFA) on top of the roof were he lives. It is PD3LPA Louwrens who is living near Rotterdam (about 300km from here). I met Louwrens on the 11m band about 30 years ago and we had a great chat which we both never forgot. I continued with the hobby and Louwrens didn't but I'm glad he picked it up again after so many years. It turns out that a contact between us on 2m FT8 was really easy. We'll try SSB another time. Actually I made a number of contacts on 2m FT8 with the special event call.

And while the number of contacts are growing our tomatoes do as well...