My First Experience On HF

Getting my Tech license was a thrill and earning my General was awesome, but nothing beats actually getting on the HF bands and living what amateur radio is all about - well, there is one thing better (so far as I have witnessed), but I will hit that point in a few moments.

Dropping down below 2 meters (144MHz) is pretty neat.  You hear stations from all over talking about this and that.  This morning, on my way to work, I heard a station in Oklahoma doing a little rag-chewing with a station in Missouri.  The signals were so strong and so clear that if I hadn't known that I was on 40 meters (7MHz), I would have sworn they were on our local 2 meter repeater.  Had there have been a break in their conversation, I would have called out there to them and tried to get my first QSO.  As it was, I was getting pretty close to being late, so I had to shut down the rig and go into the office.

When I got off of work tonight, I immediately headed up to a higher point than where my work is.  Work sits in a valley, but there are plenty of hills around here.  Finding one that has a farm road on it and no buildings close is a bit difficult, but not impossible, so I headed up north of work to a more hilly area, found a spot to safely pull off of the road and started tuning the dial around 20 meters.

I was listening to strong stations in FL, SC, TX, and GA coming in loud and clear - a good S9.  As I was tuning around, I heard a station that, honestly, caused me to get pretty excited and I witnessed my first non-contesting pileup - one station answering and 30+ stations calling.  Everyone was trying to get a QSO with station J7WTA on the Dominica Island - a rare.

J7WTA was coming in about 5/7 and so I thought I would try and make my first QSO even more special.  After trying my luck to reach out to this Caribbean nation for nearly 30 minutes, I gave up.  He was just about the same signal as the QRM (noise) and fading.  Missed my first foreign QSO but it was fun trying to get it and listening to all the stations that were likewise trying to make contact.  There are some happy hams as far away as Los Angeles and Phoenix that were able to eek out enough power to get over the top and catch a rare QSO. 

So, I will get back to trying to get my first HF QSO.  Who knows where the other station will be?  Here in the States?  Canada? or will I be lucky enough to have a QSO with a small foreign country somewhere out there?

73's