I have been staying up late several nights a week for over a month… hoping and waiting and trying to make the contact on the last band for the last state in my quest for 9 Band Worked All States. I got 99% of it last year but the big ones way down on 160 meters (you know near the AM radio broadcast band)… I finally got Hawaii in late February during a CW contest. But Alaska was not to be heard. I tried one operator in Juneau but he didn’t have enough antennas or being that close to the coastal mountains he was blocked from making it with out a lot more power or antennas. But finally, I got a contact from one of the Amateur operators near Anchorage that said he had helped a friend there to get his tower set up to work 160 meters… Since that is so low the antennas generally require a lot of wire or a tall structure to work well, although I am told the 43 ft vertical can work 160 if set up with a little help and lots of counterpoise… I have a couple of compromise antennas up for Transmit in the 160 meter Carolina Windom and a homebrew 160 meter loop. Neither of which is very high and neither have sufficient radials or counterpoise under them to help feed off the tower, which itself is only 43 ft of pipe… never the less, last night the one and only station I have ever heard in Alaska came on… I do use a magnetic loop for receive that helps tremendously. It reduces the man made noise way below the hearing level and less signals can be decoded much easier, anyway… I was hearing the station in Soldotna, AK…
The first time heard and I tried to get back several times but no response…
He had a good signal down here and several other stations around were hearing him as well. I let him know by email and text that he was being heard… I must assume he has a high noise level up there and that condx were mostly up and not back but he kept trying… finally after hearing him for about 2 hours I switched to JT9 and hoped that the 3db extra would do the trick as I have no extra power to use down here… I started calling him and after about 5 or 6 calls he came back that he was hearing me gave signal reports and closed out the contact…
What a joy that was late at night picking up my last of the needed states… I copied his signal report and sent it to him after we had concluded to show he was being seen by several but as far as I can tell, he made only a couple of other contact in the lower 48… most in the far west or North West…
I checked my LOTW this morning and he had confirmed there last night so I was double happy today..
Note WL7SJ at the top was verified through LOTW…
9 bands worked and confirmed for, although one for 160 meters was confirmed by card, would like to get it through LOTW and it makes it easier for the awards people… but at least I know it is done and confirmed, just need to send off for the certificates now.
I guess now I will have to start work on another hurdle of some sort? maybe re-learn my CW and do WAS on CW?
WD0AJG