First contact with the straight key

   Thought of calling CQ and making a contact with my straight key this evening. Something I've never done before. After a few CQs on about 15 wpm (I think??) nothing was coming back to me. So I decided to search for someone to QSO with. Then I found EA3PO unmistakingly calling CQ on 20m with a straight key on a speed slow enough that it was readable for me. I decided to key my call but he was not responding. So I tried again slowly EA3PO de PE4BAS K. Now he was coming back to me. Don't know exactly what he was keying but heard my call and a report. I thought I heard his name something like CESG, I was sure it was wrong but that is what I heard. After all it should be CESC short for Fransesc. But that is what I found out after the QSO. I hope he did hear my keying well, I think so because he repeated my name and did say something else which I didn't decode. It is so frustrating that you hear someone "talking" and you want to understand but you don't. Anyway, I did make the contact and that is what counts after all. I think I better concentrate on training words that are common in a QSO. Like TNX FER CALL UR ES RST RPT CALL NAME QTH HW? any other words? I found that many operators send BEST DX when they say goodbye.

TF2MSN Odinn

 So unfortunate that a nice HAMradio operator has died last month. I didn't know him personnally but Odinn was my first ever contact from Iceland back in 1987. We exchanged QSL cards.

Odinn was living on Vestmannaeyjar Isl. back then. This all happened on CB (11m). Contact made in FM with a converted 22 channel radio. This CB radio was modified by myself and had 54 channels, that's why my callsign at that time was DD54. I remember that there was a lot of fading on his signal and I could barely understood what he was saying. It was so special to me that I went to my dad and asked him to listen to a station from Iceland for the first time. My father, as always interested, but not his hobby ;-). Anyway, I had several QSOs with Odinn later on when I had a SSB radio.  And when I became a HAM I really enjoyed working him after I discovered he also went to HAMradio. We always had a chat about the good old CB times. It is sad we lost him. He will be remembered!

CQ WW digi

 Participated in this FT8/FT4 contest for a few hours last weekend till I reached 150 QSOs. Interesting to see that many interesting DXCCs could be worked without much effort. 

Testing the mapping feature from WorldRadioLeague.com. Not perfect, but it looks nice. I only did 10, 15, 20 and 40m. Did not participate over 16 hours like is written on the side of the map. I think that the time between the first and the last QSO is 16 hours. But in between I was off for at least 10 hours to sleep and do other things. On 40m my call was being used by another station. Strange to see your own callsign calling while it is not you. This station even made some QSOs. I don't see what the fun of this is? Same thing happened to one of my hamradio friends on 40m as well.