[I] know you’ve operated abroad a number of times, in some cases with a country-specific call (UK, for example), but I was wondering if in your travels you have every operated or know someone who has with an American license in Germany.
I travel there for work occasionally and another trip is coming up in the next month or two and it has spurred me to study for my Extra license (I’m taking the exam remotely this Thursday with HRCC). I know that Germany is a CEPT country and to use the Germany-authorized full HF privileges (“Class A” license), I need to be an Extra (or else as a General, I would get a hybrid of a Technician and General band privileges).
In any case, I’m touching base to make sure I’m not oblivious of something out of left field. I know I need to carry the FCC document that indicates the international agreement, but is there anything else that I need to prepare or bring to operate over there? I understand that as an extra, my call would be DL/WD4AWD.
Just looking for some “proofreading” of my preparation from another traveler who is infinitely more experienced in operating abroad than I am. Thanks for any tips!
Thank you for reaching out Spencer! First of all, congrats on working on your Extra exam. It’s brilliant that your travels are inspiring you to bite the bullet!
Readers, I asked Spencer for permission to post his question here, because I’ve never actually operated in Germany (or any other EU country) with my American call. On those occasions, I was living in the UK, so used my UK call, M0CYI. I’m not sure if the procedure is the same.
In fact, I never even operated in the UK with my US callsign because almost immediately after moving, I obtained a UK license (which was, in fact, a very simple process).
If memory serves, I thought at one point there may have been an extra step: to register with the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA). I’m not sure if that’s required anymore or, in fact, if it ever was for CEPT. I do know that operating in a CEPT country is usually very simple and hassle-free.
Readers: if you have experience operating with a US license in Germany, can you please comment with any tips or additional information that would help Spencer? In addition, if you have tips about operating in other CEPT countries, please feel free to comment.
On Tuesday, April 23, 2024, I had a bit of time in the middle of the day to perform a park activation, but I couldn’t go too far afield because I needed to pick up my daughters from school around 3:00 PM.
Where to go?
I didn’t want to activate the same spots I’ve been activating a lot lately; I wanted to find a new spot, but my window of time limited my options.
Here in the Asheville area, we only have a few POTA entities within, say, a 25-30 minute drive of downtown, but a few of the sites we do have are vast. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, and Pisgah Game Land are massive and it would be easy to activate every day of your life and set up at a different site each time if you’re willing to bring your own chair and table/kneeboard..
It was such a beautiful day, I ideally wanted to find a spot with a picnic table under the shade of a tree. I know of a couple sites on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I’d activated them recently. Also there was the Vance Birthplace, but again, I’d been there a lot lately.
Then it dawned on me that Lake Powhatan, in Pisgah National Forest (US-4510), might be a good option. It’s close to Asheville, a beautiful site, and I was almost certain I remembered seeing picnic tables there when I camped there with friends some two years ago. I made a quick call to the park office and confirmed.
Lake Powhatan requires a day use permit of $5 per person–you pay at the entrance and then have access to the lake and beach area for the full day. I didn’t mind paying this fee at all because I will typically leave that same amount in the donation box of many of the state parks I frequent anyway.
It’s a really short walk from the parking area to the lake and picnic sites.
I grabbed my TR-45L Skinny (in its padded camera pack) and my GoRuck GR1 backpack that had all of my antenna supplies and even my Elecraft KX2 inside.
Had this been a summer day, the lake would have been packed with families!
Why bring two radios? I really wanted to use the TR-45L, but I also thought about testing the waters on the 15, 12, and 10 meter bands. Since the TR-45L only covers 80, 40, 30, 20, and 17 meters, I needed another option.
Lots of picnic table options around the lake.
Turns out, the higher bands weren’t in great shape, so I didn’t need to use the KX2 after all.
I didn’t pair the TR-45L Skinny with an ATU, thus I needed an antenna option that would be resonant or matched on each of the bands I planned to operate. I decided to deploy my KM4CFT EFHW that I’d cut as a 30 meter end-fed half-wave with a 40 meter extension. This antenna would give me all of the bands of the TR-45L (save 80M). As a 30M EFHW, I’d have 30 and 17 meters, then by adding the 40M extension, I’d have both 40 and 20 meters as well.
Setup was quick and easy (even though it took several tries with my throw line to hit the branches I wanted).
Gear:
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I deployed the antenna as a 30 meter EFHW and started calling CQ POTA on the 17 meter band.
I quickly found out that 17 meters was not in great shape. I did work N5PJ after a few minutes (thanks, Perry!) but didn’t hang around 17 meters much longer.
The poor state of 17 meters was likely a good indicator of what the higher bands might be like, so I abandoned the idea of going up to 10 meters. Instead, I QSY’d to the 30 meter band.
30 meters was in better shape. I worked five more stations in short order, then there was a lull in activity for several minutes. My thinking was that the bulk of the POTA activity would be on 20 meters, so I lowered part of my antenna, connected the 40M link, and raised it again.
Turns out, 20 meters was pretty active.
I ended up adding 16 stations to the logs including at least one Park-to-Park with AC9OT (thank you!).
All-in-all, I logged 22 stations on three bands. Propagation was a bit rough for sure, but the activation was a lot of fun!
Here are my logs:
QSO Map
Here’s what this five-watt activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map (click image to enlarge):
Activation Video
Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the entire activation. As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have monetization turned off on YouTube, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.
I’m so glad I decided to give Lake Powhatan a try. I’m very tempted to pay $40 for an annual pass.
There are several other picnic sites in/around the lake that I’d like to try and, frankly, next time I think I’ll bring my mountain bike! There are loads of trails on-site that also connect up to the (very popular) Bent Creek network.
Thank you
Thank you for joining me during this peaceful activation!
I hope you enjoyed the field report and my activation video as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Of course, I’d also like to send a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon, and the Coffee Fund. While not a requirement, as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.
As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo makes it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me! Have a brilliant week!
Many thanks to Christian (IX1CKN) who shares the following field report:
QRP Fun Despite the Conditions!
by Christian (IX1CKN)
The weekend passed without rain, nor snow, but with temperatures that didn’t exactly encourage spending too much time outdoors. It seems that, despite the date, winter has returned. Nevertheless, the POTA call was hard to resist. So, since the midday cold didn’t seem too harsh, I hopped into my car.
I wanted to avoid the surroundings of Aosta, the town in north-western Italy where I live, and explore less frequented references for a different experience. I chose IT-1196, the Xeric environments of Gran Brison-Cly.
The reserve consists of two “sub-zones”: one around Cly Castle (in Saint-Denis) and the other above it. I set up in the first one, partly because the view of the ancient castle ruins while I transmitted was charming.
I had the most minimal setup possible: a Xiegu G-106, pushing no more than 5 watts, and a quarter-wave vertical antenna planted in the ground.
This antenna comes as a single telescopic whip, over 5 meters long, supplied with a braid of radials to lay at the base. Despite the feeling it gave me when I took it out of the package, it positively impressed me with its performance.
Propagation conditions hadn’t been impressive for a couple of days, but not trying at all is the surest way to make no contacts, so there I was, making my first calls from the promontory on 20 mt.
The response rate wasn’t particularly impressive, indeed, but it confirmed what I had already experienced in February 2023 during the first activation of this reference. The northern path was open, as evidenced by several stations responding from the northern part of the UK.
However, the unexpected surprise came at 13:27 UTC when NL7V answered my call. It was Paul, from North Pole, a town in the Fairbanks borough, Alaska. He gave me a 22 signal report, but I still couldn’t quite believe my ears. I’m working with 5 watts, and I never would’ve thought my signal could reach that far (distance from here is about 7.532 km). I thanked him sincerely and told Paul he literally made my day.
Here’s a video clip of the Alaska QSO:
As for the rest of the activation, the 10 and 12 meters bands were far from lively, and even the attempt on 15 meters didn’t yield anything interesting. So, I switched back to 20 meters and resumed calling.
In the final log, there are 31 contacts (in about an hour and a half of activation), including 5 with colleagues in other references. As has happened before, just when it seems like nothing suggests going out to activate, that’s precisely when you need to go.
A reader reached out to me this morning asking about the Mountain Topper MTR-3B. It reminded me of a teaser LnR Precision posted earlier this month in an MTR-4B update on their website. Here’s what they said:
Update: 4/1/23: We do not have MTR4 V2.3 available for purchase now but will be releasing more for purchase on May 1, 2024.
Apologies on the delay but we needed more time to get parts that are in short supply and fabricate. This will be the only and last offering of the MTR4b V2.3 radios as we are shifting focus on a redesigned and re-engineered version of the popular MTR3B!
It is our hope to have these out in Fall of 2024 if possible, but no guarantees.
I’m very excited about this news! I own two MTR-3Bs and absolutely love this model. When I checked in with LnR a couple of years ago, they said they had no plans to produce the MTR-3B again. They must have noticed the strong customer demand.
I assume the new model might incorporate some of the upgrades found on the MTR-4B, like an SWR and Power Output meter and a more accessible sidetone control. We’ll have to wait and see!
LnR is a small “mom-and-pop” company, so we’ll need to be patient as they introduce the new MTR-3B. I’m sure they’ll struggle to keep up with demand. I, for one, am eager to see this super-compact transceiver back on the market.
Many thanks to a number of readers who’ve sent me the following email announcement (that, unfortunately, I also received today) from Martin Jue at MFJ Enterprises:
Heavy Sad Heart
Dear Fellow Hams and Friends,
April 25, 2024
Dear Fellow Hams and Friends,
It is with a sad heart as I write this letter.
As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024. This is also the same for our sister companies’ Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics.
Times have changed since I started this business 52 years ago. Our product line grew and grew and prospered. Covid changed everything in businesses including ours. It was the hardest hit that we have ever had and we never fully recovered.
I turned 80 this year. I had never really considered retirement but life is so short and my time with my family is so precious.
I want to thank all of our employees who have helped build this company with me over the years. We have many employees who have made MFJ their career for 10, 20, 30, 40 and more years.
We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May 17, 2024. We have a lot of stock on hand. We will continue to offer repair service work for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future.
Finally, a special thanks to all of our customers and our dealers who have made MFJ a worldwide name and a profitable business for so many years. You all are so much appreciated.
Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report:
QRP POTA & SOTA on Killington Peak, Vermont
By Conrad Trautmann (N2YCH)
Peter (K1PCN) and I decided to travel from Connecticut to Vermont to view the solar eclipse that occurred on April 8, 2024.
We got an early start on Sunday morning April 7th to drive to Rutland, Vermont where we stayed overnight. This positioned us well for a short drive the next morning to drive North towards Burlington, where we’d be under the path of totality.
Knowing we’d have some extra time on our hands on Sunday afternoon, Peter planned two park activations. Our first stop was Calvin Coolidge State Park (POTA US-5541 & SOTA W1/GM-002), which encompasses Killington Peak and is also a two-fer with the Appalachian Trail (US-4556). We also activated Gifford Woods State Park (US-3115), which isn’t too far from Killington.
For the trip up the mountain, we “walked-on” the K1 Gondola ski lift to get up most of the way.
From the top of the ski lift, we hiked another 360 feet, up 100 feet in elevation, in the snow, to get to the actual summit at approximately 4,230’ above sea level.
Photo of Peter and me on the summit
Our kits needed to be self-contained and not too heavy for the hike. Peter packed his Icom IC-705 along with a fiberglass mast and an end-fed half wave wire antenna to do a sideband activation. I brought my Elecraft KX-3, 3Ah Bioenno LifPo battery, and the Elecraft AX-1 antenna to do a digital activation. We both activated on 20 meters and were far enough apart that we didn’t interfere with one another. We also tried 17 meters.
After the hike up, we surveyed the area to see where the best spots would be for us to set up. Peter took one side of the summit while I set up on an exposed rock so I wouldn’t be sitting in the snow. Peter wore his ski pants…I, on the other hand, ended up with wet jeans by the end. I’ll re-think my attire the next time I do this. I got the radio equipment right but not the clothing selection. Priorities!
Conrad, N2YCH on the summit of Killington Peak in VermontPeter, K1PCN with EFHW antenna, which you can see if you look very closelyPeter, K1PCN and his radio and antenna
In addition to the HF radios, we both brought our VHF/UHF handhelds to make contact with each other as well as anyone who might be nearby. Peter brought a Baofeng UV-5R and I brought a Kenwood TH-D72. I was lucky enough to complete a QSO with someone who was mobile and driving along US Route 89, which at its closest point to Killington Peak is a solid 20 miles away. I verified that via email with the other ham after the fact. Continue reading SOTA, POTA, and a Total Solar Eclipse Adventure: Conrad and Peter Pack It In!→
Many thanks to Scott (VA3EKR) who shares the following field report:
Apr. 15, 2024, Great Lakes Waterfront Trail Recreation Site (CA-6003)
by Scott (VA3EKR)
Decided to try the other side of the harbour for the activation, in Tannery Park.
For the setup, I picked a picnic table on the north side of Walker Street, as there were larger trees there.
This is the view of the harbour from the picnic table.
The bands were misbehaving, and interestingly, I have never experienced listening to the band go very quiet suddenly, due to the solar flare and the R1 radio blackout that resulted.
I used the trusty QRP-Guys random-wire antenna with 9:1 matching transformer.
Here is a map of the QSOs. The longest distance was to the Czech Republic, 6,970km away. I also pleased at getting some California QSOs, especially using only 10 watts. Three park-to-park QSOs. Orange markers indicate 20m, Turquoise represents 15m, and Red is 17m.
Screenshot
After the activation, I scouted the other side of the park. This is a fairly newly-renovated park, and so I was interested in seeing what they had done with it.
I met a new friend, Pierre, who is retired from IBM, and is very into astronomy. He showed me a very nice image of the sun with sun-spots. He even has a virtual-reality display that allows you to see the images! This was nice, as my recent viewing of the solar eclipse was a complete wash-out.
The Bronte Astronomy Group has public viewings, so I will have to monitor the Facebook page and go out some time to see some nice astronomy images!
The last thing I noticed is that the sculpture they put up, is rusty and tall.
I am hoping that next time I can bring an alligator-clip, a small counterpoise wire, and I can attempt to tune up this and use it as an absurd but fun antenna!
Lately, it’s been a proper challenge to get out and activate.
I’ve had a number of projects that have kept me at home working and when I do head out the door, my timing has been tight. While I love squeezing in park activations when I’m otherwise busy running around town, I also never activate if it’s truly inconvenient.
I’m a big believer in never feeling pressure to activate. Rather, I believe in enjoying the radio journey and therapy.
This is why I don’t pay close attention to my stats in either the POTA (Parks On The Air) or SOTA (Summits On The Air) programs. Maybe when I’m an empty-nester in a few years I’ll spend some time working on my numbers–for the fun of it–but for now, it’s just not in the cards. (Admittedly, when I have more free time, it’ll be fun to achieve my first Mountain Goat award!)
On Monday, April 15, 2024, I planned a trip to my hometown of Hickory, North Carolina, to take my father out to lunch at the airport café.
A 2020 photo from KHKY
If you’ve been a subscriber/reader for long, you’ll know that for the past five years, I’ve spent a lot of time in Hickory doing caregiving for my mother. I would typically spend a night or two in Hickory per week and take her to her frequent oncologist and specialist appointments. .
When she passed away in January, and my sister and her daughter moved in with my father, I no longer had a need to do weekly overnight trips. Indeed–I have no place to stay as the house is full. It’s all worked out really well and now our family trips to Hickory are mostly day trips with my wife, daughters, and Hazel.
It was during those overnight trips that I would fit in park activations–there are a number of parks around Hickory that I would frequent.
Thwarted Rove
I’d plotted a proper POTA rove en route to Hickory on the 15th. I planned to hit a number of parks I used to activate frequently–at least two parks on the way and one or two parks during my return home.
I packed my car with three different radios and a variety of antennas with the idea of using a different pairing at each park.
Twenty minutes into my journey to the first park that morning, I received a call from my daughter’s physician who reminded me that she had an appointment at 2:00 in the afternoon. Doh!
Somehow, that appointment didn’t make it into the family calendar and it was too late to shift it to another date.
I’ll admit: I was bummed.
This dramatically changed my schedule, but I was determined to fit in at least one activation and lunch with my father. As I was driving, I did the mental time math–if I activated Lake James, it would be a very modest detour and I would have an hour or so to play radio. I’d need to pick up my father no later than 10:45 to take him to a (now early) lunch.
This would give me just enough time to get back to the QTH and pick up my daughter no later than 1:30 PM.
I called my father and confirmed it all.
Lake James State Park (US-2739)
I arrived at the Lake James entrance around 8:45 AM. The weather was beautiful and ideal for POTA.
I knew I had about one hour to fit in this activation and I wanted it to be relaxed since the rest of the day would be pretty pressed, time-wise.When I first arrived at the Lake James parking area, I thought I was going to be the only visitor on the site. After hopping out of the car, though, I heard a group of people shouting and then noticed a load of cars and a school bus at the opposite end of the lot.
Turns out, at least two school groups were visiting on a field trip.
I made my way to the lakeshore and picked out a picnic site in the shade and with a nice antenna support (i.e. tree) just waiting to assist in my activation!
I decided to pair my Elecraft KX2 with an end-fed half-wave my buddy Steve (MW0SAW) built for me a couple years ago.
As I started setting up the antenna, a school group, led by one of the park rangers, moved to a site nearby to do some hands-on science. Part of me hoped they might venture past my site and I was ready to tell them all about amateur radio, if asked, but they remained at the same site during my entire activation.
Gear:
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Our friend Alan (W2AEW) just published this excellent short video demonstrating how to quickly tune the Penntek TR-45L’s Z-Match ATU. Of course, this same technique can be applied to the Emtech ZM-2 or any other manual Z-Match tuner:
Eclipse totality, as seen from US-8785, complete with corona.
My home QTH is located near Tionesta, PA, and the path of the 2024 eclipse put us near, but not in, the path for totality. At home we would have more than 99.5% of the sun’s disc obscured. I will confess that the distinction between 99.5% and totality was lost on me, but Becky was insistent that she wanted to be in the path of totality, because it gives a unique view when the sun’s disc is completely obscured by the moon. At that point, only a halo of the sun’s corona remains visible. Becky was right. It was well worth the effort to get in the path of totality.
My contribution was to find a public area within the path of totality that would not be swarmed by traffic, cars, and people.
The Eclipse Plan
It turned out that we could be within the totality path by driving less than 20 miles from home. We could also do this by driving away from population centers, rather than driving toward them. Places like Erie, PA were expecting tens of thousands of people to visit. I later heard stories of miles-long traffic jams, and hours of delay experienced by Erie pilgrims. I hoped to, and thankfully managed to, avoid that fate.
After identifying that this section of PA State Game Land 086 was in the path for eclipse totality, a satellite view helped to identify open fields for viewing and activating.
I found that portions of Pennsylvania State Game Land 086 (coincidentally also POTA entity US-8785) lay within the totality zone. Using a variety of on-line maps, I was able to find a parking area near the start of a gated Game Land road.
The road passed next to a series of small fields (satellite images are definitely helpful!). Such fields are not uncommon at Game Lands, because it provides the opportunity for hunters to cross paths with rabbits and pheasants, both of which were out-of-season in April. But, those same fields should have an unobstructed view of the sky. So, we headed hopefully toward our selected parking lot, with plans to set up folding chairs (and a portable radio station) in one of the fields, as long as a parking space remained.
The POTA Plan
I had previously activated US-8785, making contacts on only the 40m band. At that time, the goal had been a quick activation during a rove. Lately, I have been working hard to accumulate contacts on 10 bands at multiple parks, inching my way closer to POTA’s N1CC award for making contacts on 10 bands from 10 different parks.
Prior to eclipse day, I had completed contacts on 10 bands from each of seven different parks. While two or three of those contacts were made using VHF FM mode, my preferred method for achieving my goal at a park is to use CW mode and QRP power levels to make contacts on high frequency (HF) bands from 10m to 80m, and to also make CW QRP contacts on 160m (which is technically a medium frequency band).
The challenge with the 160m band (and the 80m band, to some extent) is that it generally works best after sunset. Given that there would be an abnormal sunset occurring at 3:20 pm EDT, might it be possible to get a 160m contact during or near the period of totality? That would be my quest.
So, I picked my equipment to give me the ability to rapidly move between bands. I paired my KX3, with its excellent tuner and 160m to 6m coverage, with my VK160 homebrew 9:1 end-fed random wire (EFRW) antenna. The story of VK160 design and construction and VK160 testing during Winter Field Day 2022 has previously been told in these pages (links provided), but suffice it to say that the radiating wire is 144 ft long.
If the crowds were sparse enough, I hoped to set it up as a shallow inverted V (I normally get a throw line up 30 to 40 ft, which is small in comparison to the antenna’s total length) along the wood line bordering the field. I also brought two Bioenno LiFePO4 batteries that would normally be able to power my station for the large part of a day. I chose battery redundancy, because there would be no opportunity for a re-do.
My operating plan was to make contacts on as many bands as possible. I would start with 10m before the start of the eclipse, and work my way down in frequency, hopefully after making one or more contacts on each successive band. I also needed to manage my time, so that I would get some time on each of the low bands – 60m, 80m, and 160m as the eclipse neared totality. Since I already had contacts from a prior activation, I would not work 40m unless I had completed contacts on the other 9 bands.
Gear
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Eclipse viewing glasses conforming to ISO 12312-2 for direct solar observation
Eclipse Day
My cousin joined Becky and I for the outing to see the eclipse. We all hoped that the afternoon would be memorable. As we drove to our selected location, traffic was unexpectedly light, but the sky was overcast. There had been rain earlier in the morning, but the clouds seemed to be thinning as the day progressed, and we remained hopeful during the drive, particularly as glimpses of blue sky became apparent.
A final stretch on a dirt road brought us to the Game Land parking lot, a cleared patch of gravel, which was… empty!!! It seemed that I had either planned well, or guessed right. Either way, I was happy with the starting point!
We passed out the folding chairs from the back of the truck, shouldered our bags, and started the half-mile walk back the road to find our field. We saw no vehicles and no people on the way in. We did hear a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers drumming on branches near the side of the road, and we saw a Red-tailed Hawk and some Turkey Vultures soaring overhead. It all made for an enjoyable walk, and the clouds continued to thin, with patches of blue emerging as the clouds continued their journey overhead.
Setting Up the Station
Here, I am preparing to throw a line to support the VK160. I selected a tree somewhat distant from my planned operating location, so that apex would be located at about the midpoint of the radiating wire.I used the K4SWL sling method of throwing the arborist line for this deployment. While I am much more accurate using the “granny shot” throwing method, the sling method can get the line consistently higher.I am deploying one of the three radial wires used with the VK160. If you look closely, you can see the antenna feedpoint hanging behind me, level with my hat brim. The cord holding the feedpoint can be seen just above my head.
When we arrived at the field, I scouted out a location for my antenna. A tall tree at the woodline seemed to have a number of great branches high above the ground. I broke out my arborist line, made my throw, and missed. I repeated the process a couple more times, then snagged a light branch just a bit lower than I had hoped, but it would be sufficient.
Unwrapping the antenna (it takes a while to spool out 144 ft of wire) I found that it would stretch across the width of the field, and a bit further along one edge, so up it went in a bent inverted V. A length of 550 cord secured it to a tree branch on the far side of the field, and a bit of light cord held the feed point to a tree branch near my chair. This done, I connected and stretched out three counterpoise wires, connected the RG316 feed line, and started assembling the station.
On the Air
I am preparing for operation. Station equipment is on the clipboard in my lap. The antenna feedpoint can be seen at upper right. The 15 ft RG316 feedline runs downward from the feedpoint, along the ground, and up to my operating position.On the air with the KX3 set for 5 watts CW.Working for a contact on 12m.Continuing to work contacts as the light dims. Chairs for Becky and my cousin are about 100 ft down the field from my operating position.Between contacts I could quickly don my fashionable eclipse glasses to safely monitor progress, as the moon’s shadow progressed across the sun.
I was quickly ready to hit the air. Having scheduled the activation in advance, I was not worried about cell service, but found that I had enough to verify my initial spot, as well as subsequent band changes. As planned, I started on the 10m band. It took some time before my CQ call was returned. After logging it, I called for a bit longer, then switched over to the 12m band, where things took a different turn. Continue reading K3ES’ Eclipse Clean Sweep!→
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