First SSB QSO

I started send CQ back in July, 2007 and finally after nearly a year I made my fist SSB (voice) QSO with Eran [WH6R] in Honolulu, Hawaii. Eran was calling CQ, running 600w to a 3-element Yagi about 15′ again from the blue of the Pacific Ocean. He was receiving good reports into Europe, Japan and throughout the US.

While talking to a few hams on IRC, someone posted the frequency of 14.227. After listening about about about 11 minutes (1740 UTC) I decided to put a call in, “Whiskey Six Oscar November Victor, you are 59 59 in California.” I received a report of “5/2” from WH6R and he was happy to know he could still be heard on the “mainland.”

As for the low “strength” reading, my guess is I should have increased the ‘Mic Gain’ on the IC-718, which was only at 50 because of the heavy PSK31 operating I have been doing. I cannot confirm this right now, but will do some checking online, with other hams and post at “the Zed.”

Last night when I got home from work, I turned the shack on and 40m (7.073) was alive with activity on the waterfall. After some checking, it was the PODXS 070 Club 40m Firecracker Sprint. All the QSOs you could make on 40m in a 6-hour window. While not involved in the contest I did log 11 contacts, including AZ, NV and UT in about 50 minutes. Three more states as I work towards my WAS on 40m!