22 January 2025

 After last week’s 10m marathon I thought I had reached the top. However, the 12 meter band schooled me. Again, I am humbled by the number of stations looking to contact Wake Island after logging a personal record number of contacts between my morning and evening sessions on the air.

  For the past several weeks I have received many questions about bands and modes people would like me to operate on. 12m was by far the most requested band. Naively I tuned up my radio Tuesday morning thinking this would be just another busy day sitting near the ocean with the luxury of being able to also play ham radio and get a bunch of contacts. I underestimated my understanding of “busy”. The firehose was officially turned on full blast this day as contacts came flooding in.  Thankfully I didn’t drown in the cascade of calls as the past two months of operating on Wake have helped me get ready for a truly busy day like this one.

  Just before 2000z on 20 January, I got my radio affairs in order at my new favorite spot to operate from called Pirates Cove. Happy with the SWR on the meter I turned on the radio and like normal I scanned the band for any signs that it was open. I only heard one other station chatting away but not booming in. I found a nice vacant spot at the bottom of the voice band and listened. Once I knew the coast was clear I put out my call and within no time, K7YK caught me, and quickly spotted me. Off to the races it went. Within a minute the calls were lining up so I switched to operating split and started filling the log. 

  Even with the sheer volume of new callsigns I’ve been able to meet, I have started recognizing a few repeat visitors. That part of ham radio I truly enjoy, the community. KL7KK and AL7KC, way in the middle of somewhere (Bethel) Alaska, are great examples. Partly because I got my first call sign while stationed in Alaska, those prefixes jump out to me and I tend to pull them out of the mix quicker. Additionally, it’s amazing to me that the sound of a familiar voice through the chaos stands out so clearly. Nearing the end of my morning radio run, I distinctly heard Rob, AE7AP, calling from my hometown of Helena, Montana. He has a unique way he announces his call, as I’m sure we all do, that is distinct and personal and is transported via the ionosphere to my far off location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

  As the calls kept coming in, time just flew by. I only seemed to notice when I wrote down when the hours rolled over, one, two, three…  In my past operations, the bands will typically fade away after a few hours. 12m showed now sign of stopping and I only pulled the plug after four hours as it was about lunch time and my brain was thoroughly exhausted. Standing up was a chore as I had been hunched over the radio, tensed up, and nearly affixed to my chair for those four hours. Funny, flying more than two hours and I’m ready to climb the walls with boredom. Put me in front of a radio and voila. Time disappears.

 After lunch I spent several hours logging all 498 contacts, and finished just in time to dash to the dining hall for dinner, eat quickly, and get back out to the beach for my 0700z showing of, “Making (Electromagnetic) Waves on Wake”. This time though, 12m finally did show signs of mortality and began fading around 0900z. Although the evening wasn’t as strong as the morning to the east, I heard stations from all over Europe and logged about 240 contacts.

  All in, I spent about 6.5 hours on the radio, and logged nearly 740 contacts. The next morning I felt a bit hungover, without having drank a drop the day before. Is radio-aholic a thing?  73, AL

PS – Thanks again to several of you who have donated a few spare dollars to help me offset QSL costs and upgrade my antenna situation here on Wake. I hope to get QSL cards printed and begin mailing returns by the end of February with the help of my family back home. If you would like to contribute to the cause, or buy me a coffee/tasty beverage, use this link below. Cheers!