Decided to give my new set up a workout. When I left the rig last night I was on 40M. This morning I cam in the shack and jiggled the mouse to wake up the computer and checked out SpotCollector to see what was red. Stations I need for a given band are displayed in red. I saw JD1BLY displayed on 80M. I already have Ogasawara on some other bands but not on 80. I double clicked JD1BLY on the Spot Collector callsign data field and my rig and antenna immediately switched to the correct freq. I determined that I could hear him, he was working simplex on 3504.5. I flipped on the diversity function of the F5K and peaked the SNR on JD1BLY. Simultaneously I flipped on the ALS-1300. The amp takes about 3-4 seconds to go through a step start procedure, and I heard the bandswitch in the amp automatically click to 80. I set my keyer speed to match the DX and fired off two quick W9OY's. He comes back immediately and in less than 30 seconds he is in the log.
I sit and listen for a couple minutes as I start to write my experience here and then he is gone. If I had been 2 minutes later, (like waiting for the Acom or the Alpha to warm up) I would have missed him. This is how man was meant to live!
73
