It Pays to Be Persistent…….or Lucky
Yesterday, I wandered down to the shack about 2100Z, thinking that I’d make a couple of contacts while waiting for my XYL to get home from work. I switched the rig to 30m and was instantly thrown into the middle of a pileup. I pulled up DXWatch on my laptop and discovered that the DX everyone was chasing was 3B7C, the DXpedition to St. Brandon Island in the Indian Ocean. The pileup stretched from 10.104 to at least 10.107 MHz.
I tried for more than an hour to crack that pileup. I changed frequencies, I tuned around and found who he was working and tried to call around that frequency, but nothing. After a while, I just got bored and gave up, switching to 40m, where I had a couple of nice QSOs with Jack, W4SON/M and Mark, VA3UMP. (I’m still not sure whether I can count VA3UMP as a callsign that spells a word. What do you think?)
After those two contacts, I decided to give 3B7C one more try. I tuned around a bit, and found that he was listening around 10.106. I heard him sign “TU 3B7C UP” and then hit the button on my memory keyer that blasted out my call. “KB6NU?” was the reply. I reached for the paddles and sent “DE KB6NU KB6NU K.” He came back, “KB6NU 599.” To which, I replied, “TU 599.”
How about that? After an hour with no luck, I worked him on the first call on my second attempt. Yesterday, at least, it was better to be lucky than persistent.
