This activation did not start well… After about 1h toiling in horrid conditions on 40m, all I had for show was 1 QSO… The gentleman on the other side of the QSO could not believe he could hear me with 5w given the band conditions and he had a good laugh (in a friendly way) about it. After struggling to get anybody to hear me on 40m including on the QRP QRG I decided it was time to move onto 20m. 14.285 seemed to be free so I decided to give it a go. I called and called but nothing… I was starting to think I was going to go back down without enough QSOs to validate this new activation. I was a little bit bummed to say the least. I kept on persisting and then a well known friendly voice out of the deadness of the band: “QRZ?” I knew it was Mike, G6TUH, right away, I had recognized his voice. His signal was so strong too! That single “QRZ” really gave me hope all of a sudden. He could not make my call sign out of the noise and asked me to persist until he could pull me out of the noise. I very happily obliged until he finally got my full call. When he got my call correctly and realized it was me we were both elated. I am not sure which one of us was more happy about that but we were both elated.
After getting the QSO with Mike/G6TUH done he spotted me. That was a godsend as I did not have any 3G nor an i-thingy and could not self-spot. The callers started rolling. All of a sudden 20m was hot!!! yesss! Many many strong signals too, I was really surprised. My signal was a bit tough given the QSB and the noise but we kept at it with all the chaser and it paid off.
I even QSY’ed on 15m and managed a few QSOs there as well! When it was all done and said, I had 25 QSOs on 3 bands in the log despite the terrible conditions. Nothing short of a miracle and none of it would have been possible without Mike’s perseverance. You sir are a true gentleman!!! I can never thank you enough for everything you did today! So my hat off to you. Too bad we could not get a QSO on 15m as well.
Manuel, EA2DT ended-up being the only dual-bander in my log for F/AM-697.
Also apologies to G3VXJ who had a super strong and clean signal. I was about to give him a report but a gust of wind flattened my antenna and I faded into nothingness for a few minutes while I was re-setting my gear.
Many thanks to all the chasers who persevered through QSB and noise to pull my signal out. I could have gone back down the summit after 4 QSOs but it is always a pleasure to keep going and give points to as many chasers as possible. I always make it a point to keep going until the band goes quiet.
So that was it for a tough activation but a very rewarding one in the end thanks to quality OMs along the way.
73,
Arnaud
