29 December 2024

  Some colleagues invited me to a campfire at the beach tonight. It was a beautiful evening and we witnessed a gorgeous sunset. After I set up my antenna I tuned around the band. The first station I heard calling CQ was none other than Santa Claus World – OF9X. I didn’t realize at the time that I had a direct connection to the North Pole and missed out on asking St. Nick for a belated Hexbeam antenna for Christmas…  Shortly there after I found a spot to operate and OZ6CM found me and was nice enough to spot me so everyone and their brother in Europe came calling too. Working split on the radio was just working much better tonight and my log shows it. When I can average 2 or 3 calls per minute the QSOs stack up in the log quickly. Once again, 15m conditions were outstanding tonight. 

  The campfire died down around 8:30 pm (local) and the party goers went on their way.  I stayed behind, comfortable at the picnic table with my radio, all by myself and about 30m from the ocean. The soothing sound of the waves crashing ashore in the background and a light warm breeze made it easy for me to focus on the work of pulling out calls from the chaos. By 0930z, the 15m door to Europe was quickly closing and I wrapped things up by 0945z. 151 QSOs in 120 minutes. I can’t wait to do that again in about 10 hours! 73, AL