It’s been raining non-stop since last week now, except for Thursday. Total for today at my QTH is 65 mm and counting, but other locations nearby have seen rain upward of 90 mm. I can only dream of SOTA right now.
But, there is a silver lining: rain reduces the power line noise that is plaguing me and so I’ve been on the bands from home in the last few days. 40 meters normally has a S9 level of noise, but now a little less and conditions on this band have been great the last 24 hours (I check my WSPR beacon daily).
I called CQ on 20 meters tonight and worked a Chinese and a Thai station. Then later I switched to 40 meters and got some fab signals from Japan. Worked JL1UCH and after that some other station called me. I almost fell of my chair, because nobody ever calls me: who wants to QSO with me, a small gun from Taiwan? But it turned out W9KNI did want a QSO with me and so we did. Simple exchange of the basics, but we also told each other what equipment we were using. Bob - because that is W9KNI’s name - was blasting 1500 Watts from his K3 + amp into a 4 element 40m yagi.
I, on the other hand, was using my KX3 with 12 Watts into a V-dipole, which is mounted too close to my roof, so not working optimally at all. I normally use my TS-2000 in the shack, but I wanted to test several things with my KX3 and become more familiar with it so that my next SOTA activation will go even smoother.
But then I looked up W9KNI on qrz.com and found out that Rob is the founder of Bencher and Idiom Press. Both companies are famous for many amateur radio products and Rob is know for his books “A Year of DX” and “The Complete DXer”. He is retired now and his companies have been absorbed by others, but still nice to have worked him and glad to know he is enjoying his retirement being on the amateur radio bands and calling my puny station from Taiwan.
So, not exactly SOTA, but shack preparations for SOTA and it made my day.
P.S. sorry for Bob, but I wasn’t using a Bencher paddle, because I don’t own one. In the field I use a paddle made by my friend BX2AB and in the shack a straight key (Flameproof, Junker or a Chinese key).