Cameroon, West Kiribati and bears OH MY

TJ9PF 160 pileup

A lot of DX has been happening around here. I've been off the bands starting a new business, and finally found some time to get back to ham radio. I know I've missed A LOT. Tonight I worked the Cameroon DX pedition on 40 and 30. The 40M pileup was totally out of control with cops and tuner uppers etc, and the DX was flying all over about 5khz of pileup looking for contacts. If I didn't have my trusty Flex I'm not sure I would have known where to transmit.

The above shot is of the 160M pileup. I'm listening to the Cameroon station on my 43ft wire vertical with 3 radials in the front yard and he is Q5, but the pileups are very unruly. This OP is probably the same OP from 40M. If you look at the distributions of 599's you can see he is flying all over the pileup. Fortunately the 160 crowd is much more well behaved as far as cops and kooks go. Unfortunately my 160 antenna is on the ground at the moment so my chances of working him are virtually zero on this antenna, but I hope to rectify that this weekend as the Orlando Hamcation is in progress. I need some dacron rope to get things back on the skyhooks. I have been using an inv-L but I am going to modify to a vertical T configuration this time. I have made contacts all over Europe using this 43 ft antenna and 100W on 160, but no way am I going to crack this pileup.

I will stop by the Flex booth and say HI to the guys and see what happening. It's always a great time seeing them. If there is any news I will bring it back here. I'm also in the market for one of these


I have serial #1 of the ZN-SL1 series, but I want something with a heavier base and this sucker is heavy. I love the action of this key. I have a couple of Begalli keys and a Kent and a N2DAN Mercury and a few others and this key bar none is the best. If you are ever in the market for a single lever paddle this is the one to get. I have tried all the others on the market and this one wins hands down. Beyond that I will pick up a few nicks and nacks for the antenna project and hopefully eyeballs some old friends.

Hope you are all working your fill of the DX because it is thick right now!

73