The short story:
I was about to crash for the night last night and decided to get on the radio and got a 5/9 signal report… From Gambia, my first contact from Africa!
Details:
I was listening to the 3905 net on 7.178 MHz for a while when I got home from work yesterday and then turned the volume down instead of shutting it off. Went out for a bite to eat and watched a movie… When I came in here to shut the radio down I decided to tune across the band and picked up a good signal at 7.18425 MHz. His call sign was C50C and he was starting to get a pretty good pile-up. I almost shut the radio off but decided to try to call him; after the third try I heard him say:
“N2XU five nine.”
Called him back told him he was five nine in Florida… This was a 4572 mile contact, pretty awesome considering my antenna is just some 16 gauge speaker wire cut close the the correct length. Looked him up on QRZ.com and here’s the info:
C50C
DX Expedition Gambia 2007 and 2010 of OM0C
Contest team
17. – 30.11. 2010 Banjul,
The Gambia
This is getting fun and addicting.